Mogadishu

[Syiedthebard]

Character: Mogadishu
Account: Syiedthebard

This isn't intensely gory or graphic, but… well, I'll just say, "Syiedthebard backstory disclaimer." Enter at your own peril!

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"Can I have a chat with the Master?"
"Sure."

Year 28

_The long-haired guard turned and unlocked the door. He and Mogadishu entered the room - an opulent room whose walls were lined with various swords, sabres, scimitars, maces, and other weapons, as well as the monstrous heads of minotaurs, lions, and other creatures. A bald, older man sat alone across from the door with a half-eaten feast on his table. He began to stand, keys jangling at his side. In the room's light it seemed as though the hideous wart on his cheek was moving of its own accord.
"Ah, Mogadishu, my boy!"
"Please, Master, stay seated and comfortable. I only want to talk."
The older man sat back down with a jovial nod and continued gnawing on a leg. Mogadishu, a somewhat tall man with long, unkempt hair, whose presently bare, muscular torso was marred with scars and old burns, turned to the guard and said, "It's a private talk."
"Ah, yes," interrupted the bald man through a mouthful of poultry, "leave us!"

The guard stepped out and closed the door. Mogadishu turned to his master.
"Having a good feast, Master?"
"Indeed I am, Mogadishu! And I must say, it is in celebration of your victory today. That was a good fight," answered the Master. Mogadishu walked alongside a wall with his hands behind his back, looking up at the weapons. "So," the Master began, apparently stricken with a bit of fatigue, "what did you want to talk about?" Mogadishu stopped and turned back to his master.
"I wanted to talk about the future."
"The future? We're leaving Surthay in a couple of days - I've just got to wrap up a few things."
"That is very good." At this the Master scowled, suddenly irritated, and guzzled his drink from a wooden mug, then slammed it on the table weakly.
"What do you care! A ring is a ring!"
"Surthay's different. It's nippy and wet up here…" Mogadishu began, but was interrupted again by the Master, who yelled, "You'll not complain about the damn weather!"
"...And it's right on the edge of Thay," Mogadishu finished. The Master glared inquisitively at him with now bloodshot eyes. He gripped his mug as if aiming to crush it entirely and asked, "What do you mean... on the edge... of Thay...!" barely able to speak the words, as if he was himself being crushed. Mogadishu walked slowly towards his master, who seized up with an expression of uncertainty and vexation plastered on his face.
"What I mean is, it's a shorter walk that way."

The bald man gritted his teeth and gurgled, foaming angrily at the mouth but remaining curiously stiff in his seat. His eyes watered and he began to shut them, a vicious scowl on his now moist face. The mug in his hand began to crack and splinter, and the Master gave a little stiff jerk of resistance before ceasing to move entirely, becoming a statuesque body with a face contorted with anger.

Mogadishu walked calmly up to the seated corpse and took the ring of keys from its belt.

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"What do have we here! A dog with potential, eh?"_

Year 7

_A tall, imposing man with short hair stood towering over a group of young half-naked boys armed with wooden swords and clubs. He pointed at one boy in the scattered crowd, shouting, "You, dog! What's your name!"
The boy responded, "Mogadishu." Then the tall man walked over to him and grabbed him by neck, forcefully pushing him from their dry open area into a ring bordered by small, uniform stones. Mogadishu stumbled into the arena but kept his footing, then turned to the crowd of boys and the tall man, hunched over with a club in one hand.
"The boy who can defeat this dog gets extra rations for a week. Who wants a shot!" announced the man. Immediately four of the dozen stepped forward, each of them burly for little boys. The man pointed at one of them, who wielded a club as well, and ordered him into the ring.
"Hur hur, don't think 'bout fwowin' da fight, Mog. I not gunna share no rachin wichu."

Mogadishu said nothing. He faced the boy, remaining hunched. The man called for them to be ready. Then Mogadishu asked quietly, "What's your name?" The boy said in response, "Crap. Dey call me dat till I fwap dem. If I win yer gonna call me Fwap." The man announced that the match had begun, and Fwap charged. Mogadishu waited, then pivoted to the side and stuck his leg out to trip Fwap as he ran by. But Fwap saw this and dropped his club, grabbing Mogadishu's leg during the charge in a tackle.
They flew several feet and Fwap landed on Mogadishu, knocking the wind of out him. Several of the boys cheered, but Mogadishu couldn't hear them. Fwap, himself being slightly surprised, took a moment to get his bearings and then tried to take Mogadishu's club. But the smaller one threw his own club away and struck Fwap in the face with his elbow, drawing blood and making a muted crunching sound.
Fwap cried out, bringing a hand to his face. Mogadishu took this opportunity to get out from under Fwap and then stomp his head. Fwap seemed to resist, so he stomped him again until the boy stopped resisting. Then he stepped away experimentally, and when Fwap twitched slightly he ran forward and kicked the downed boy in the groin. Fwap wailed, rolling over.
"Enough, enough!" shouted the tall man. He briskly approached the fighters, followed by several boys who swarmed around Fwap like curious gnats before dragging him out of the arena, through the open dirt area, into a longhouse, leaving a scattered trail of blood in his wake. "It looks like you've got potential after all, dog. I bought you for two hundred, but you're worth a lot more than that. Keep that in mind," said the man.

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"Do we have one thousand? One thousand for this strapping gladiator apprentice!"_

Year 15

_Mogadishu stood chained on a wooden platform, his strong adolescent body exposed to a crowd of bald heads. He was tired, panting, sweaty, but he looked healthy in spite of this. A man with a wart on his cheek exclaimed, "A thousand!"
"A thousand!" repeated the auctioneer. Mogadishu glared down at the warty man contemptuously.
"Is anyone for one thousand fifty!"
"One thousand fifty!" The auction continued. The price rose. Mogadishu looked to the side of the platform. There stood his trainer and a number of boys and adolescents, a burly Fwap included. Fwap's nose was gnarled and twisted. The trainer looked Mogadishu over, but in spite of the eye contact it seemed as though they were not looking at eachother. Rather, Mogadishu was merely looking at a tyrant, and the tyrant was merely looking at a chest of gold.
"Two thousand, sold to the gentleman there! Now, this next specimen…"
The trainer went up and pulled Mogadishu by his chains off the platform, away from the crowd. The man with the wart approached them and proffered a small chest to the trainer. Immediately the trainer opened the chest and briefly sifted through it, gauging its contents. He looked up to the other man and said, "Let's weigh this and sign the contract, hm?" The warty man nodded and turned to Mogadishu.
"You will make a fine gladiator," he said to the boy. "The school will mold you into an even fiercer killer than you proved to be earlier today. Let's sign that contract, sir."

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"Waaahahahaha!"_

Year 20

_A group of hardy young men sat around a table, laughing and slamming down their mugs full of beer. The room was dark and cold, but the spirit in it was warm. In the corner two naked Orcs argued about something, pointing vaguely in random directions. Sitting at the table, Mogadishu listened actively to another man, slightly older than he, who was telling a story.
"So Yip takes his mace and throws it at the Minotaur before running away like a little girl!" went the man, interrupting himself by irresistible bouts of laughter, "but I run after him, grab his scrawny arse by the mane, and throw him past the Minotaur!" Everyone laughed, except a Gnoll who was crouched alone along the dark room's wall. The man continued, "The Minotaur looks stupid at Yip, turns around to smack him, and I jump up on the bugger's back and slip my knife in his neck! That beast went down like a ton of bricks, all thanks to Yip and his coward legs!"
Another long bout of laughter ensued and the men drank. The pair of Orcs came over to the table and snorted angrily at one of the men.
"Graw sez you not help in last fight. Sez he go in save you from Big Fat Man with Club and you run away," said one of the Orcs. The accused man stood and looked at the other Orc.
"I was gettin' ready to run around him and stick him through the back. Ain't my fault they ended the fight before I could finish!" The silent Orc immediately recognized belligerence in the man's reply, and when the other Orc translated the words into Orcish, Graw grabbed the man by the collar and shouted something angrily at him.
Just then, an armoured man with a wicked mace came into the room.
"Shut up you lot!" he said. "Fight's starting! Yip, Graw, Mogadishu, get yer gear! It's a deathmatch." Graw's translator pulled him off of the man and told him something urgent. The brooding Gnoll stood and went with the armoured man with a snarl, and Mogadishu stood to join him, with Graw lagging behind, giving his Orc friend mean looks.

They followed the armoured man to the armoury, through halls of caged goblins, who hooted at them as they walked by, and free-roaming and chained Orcs, men, and Gnolls, all busy going somewhere or doing something accompanied by a guard or trainer. When they arrived at the armoury, Graw immediately found a greataxe. The armoured man turned to the three and explained, "You're against a bunch of half-elves. And they're not pushovers. Mogadishu, wear only your helmet."
Mogadishu stripped himself bare and strapped on a plate belt and loincloth, leaving him entirely exposed except for his groin. Then he took an ornate-looking, but rusty helmet and put it on, covering his head entirely. Finally, he found two curved shortswords and weighed them.
Meanwhile Graw was fitting himself into a suit of heavy plate, and Yip was weighing different shields to accompany his scimitar, having put on a crude set of leather armour.
"Are they free fighters?" asked Mogadishu. The armoured man nodded. Then Mogadishu turned to Graw and said in Orcish, "You have half-elves to kill, Graw." The Orc turned, nearly finished getting his armour on, and grinned, baring his tusks.
When they were ready, the gates opened and the three walked out, Graw with his greataxe and plate armour, Modadishu with his helmet and shortswords, and Yip with a round shield and scimitar, dressed in leather and a cage-like helmet. Mogadishu groaned, as his helmet exacerbated the sweltering heat of the ring.
The half-elves emerged simultaneously from the other side of the arena, whose seats were filled with uniformly bald-headed men and women. The half-elves, four in total, were all dressed in leather, each with a shortsword in each hand, except for one, who wielded a shortbow with a dagger on his belt. Their faces were thoroughly tattooed, so they must have been comrades of some sort.
A man announced the fight to begin, and Yip moved in front of Mogadishu. This was wise, for the bowman drew and loosed an arrow at the human as soon as the match began. Yip caught the arrow with his shield and the three began swiftly towards the half-elves. Their apparent leader, taller than the others and bald, darted forward to meet Graw, while another half-elf, this one female, went to meet Yip. As the four clashed, Mogadishu slipped around Yip and the leader to attack the bowman, who was being guarded by the third half-elf.

Immediately the guard thrust a sword at Mogadishu, but it was parried by his own shortsword, followed by his second, which caught the half-elf unceremoniously in the armpit. The half-elf dropped his other sword as his charge stepped back, drawing his bow back to shoot at the human gladiator. Mogadishu spun around the guard, using the sword in his armpit to turn him, interposing the half-elf's body between himself and the arrow that had just been loosed. The archer seemed surprised as his arrow struck his comrade in the chest.
Meanwhile, Graw and Yip did battle with their half-elves. Graw swung wildly with his greataxe, but it was easily dodged by the older male. He could not approach the Orc, however, as the threat of the axe was too much. The woman swung at Yip with one shortsword, which was blocked by his shield, and then stabbed at him with the other, which Yip parried with his scimitar. With her arms on the outside of either side of Yip, the Gnoll had free reign to jump forward and thrust his knee into the half-elf's gut.
She flew backward along with Yip, falling to the ground. The Gnoll rapidly approached her to deliver a killing blow, but she threw sand up into his eyes while slashing at his leg. For a moment Yip was blinded by the sand, and then he was dealt a deep cut, barreling back with a loud whine.
As the woman was kneed, the leader of the half-elves had turned, looking anxious. Graw charged him, dropping his greataxe. The leader turned back to the Orc only to be tackled to the ground. There they wrestled - with the much stronger Graw being largely successful.

Mogadishu threw the half-elf aside and ran for the archer, who with gritted teeth drew his dagger. The gladiator thrust with both swords. The archer caught one wrist with his free hand, and he thrust his dagger up at Mogadishu's neck, inside his guard.
The dagger glanced off of the man's helmet, however, and his sword plunged into the archer's ribs. They stood there for a moment, gauging their situation, locked together standing up.
Mogadishu could not rightly see the archer's entire form, but he could feel that he was inside the fellow's body, and reached his bare leg in to sweep him to the ground. The archer weakly fell with Mogadishu, and as they landed the shortsword penetrated him completely. The gladiator stood slightly and put his knee on the elf's grappling wrist, releasing his own hand, and then with his free shortsword he cut his opponents throat. As his enemy died, he stood and ran to join Graw and Yip.

Yip hopped on his good leg, crying out and pressing down on his wound. Graw and the half-elf leader wrestled while the female stood and looked between Yip and Mogadishu. Then she leapt onto Graw with one sword now, aiming to thrust her sword into the back of his neck. But he turned and swatted her off - this gave the leader an opportunity to pick up one of his dropped shortswords and stick Graw under the chin. The big, plated Orc made a gurgling sound as he was stabbed, attempting to turn back and throttled the half-elf, but the Orc was dead.
Mogadishu was upon them, finally, and before the half-elven leader could shove Graw off of him, the human had ran past him, bending over as he ran, and slashed his throat, leaving him to bleed beneath Graw.
Yip had stopped hopping around long enough to tear off a strip of cloth and wrap it around his wound. Mogadishu was charging the woman, so Yip figured he could probably contribute to her grisly death.

The two comrades ran at the final half-elf. Mogadishu got there first, swinging at her with both of his swords, but she met both of his hands with her sword-bearing forearm and punched him in the gut simultaneously with her free hand, sending him back, coughing into his helmet. But then Yip came up behind her and slammed the edge of his shield into the back of her head, knocking her clean unconscious. She fell limply forward and Yip brought his scimitar down on her back, cleaving her.
Mogadishu tossed aside a sword and removed his helmet, stumbling for just a second from the fatigue, and raised the helmet triumphantly.

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"I want poison for this next fight, Master."_

Year 28

_The wart-faced master grinned wickedly and shuffled over to retrieve a bottle from his shelf. He got it and brought it to Mogadishu. "Here you are, Mogadishu, you rascal, you," he said with an almost lewd quality in his voice. The gladiator took the bottle with a smirk and left the Master's room wordlessly.
He made his way through the halls, through the common areas, through the filthy prison that was his home, and entered the kitchen. It was empty except for one Gnoll, Yip, who was preparing what seemed to be meals for an entire army all on his own.
"I have something I need you to do, Yip."
"What want?"

The man stepped close to Yip and put his hand on the floury countertop in front of the Gnoll, halting the cook's work. He whispered up at Yip, "I need you to put this in the Master's meal tonight."
"Why?"
"Elaen," Mogadishu replied tellingly. Immediately Yip understood whatever his comrade's reason was, but he barked quietly, "I not poison Master."
Mogadishu grabbed Yip by the fur and pulled him down to his level, hissing to him in Gnoll, "You will put this in his meal when you make it, or the first person I kill when I get back from my fight will be you."
Yip whined pathetically and nodded up and down like a scared child. Mogadishu sat the bottle on the counter and left the kitchen for the armoury.

"You know this one's a duel, right Mog?" said the armoured man with the wicked mace as Mogadishu entered the armoury. The gladiator nodded and fitted his plated belt and loincloth, readying his curved shortswords.
"No helmet today?" asked the man. Mogadishu shook his head. "Good, kill the bastard then."
The gate in the armoury opened and Mogadishu walked solemnly out. He looked up to see that it was exceptionally cloudy, and then he looked across the arena to see his opponent: a muscled man with a gnarled nose, dressed in chain and wielding a single longsword. He looked to be the same age as Mogadishu, and he was slightly larger, but despite his size he seemed nimble.

The fight began. Each combatant walked cautiously to the center, their blades ready. The enemy went forward and lunged with his sword as if wielding a rapier, experimentally, to be blocked by both of Mogadishu's shortswords. Then he stepped back again, snarling, his twisted nose's nostrils flaring.
This time Mogadishu attacked. He swung with his left shortsword at the longsword, knocking it aside but not out of his enemy's grasp, and then brought his other blade down at the man's head. Unexpectedly, the man did not try to block or avoid the blow. Instead, he lowered his head a bit, catching the shortsword's blade with his skull, and before Mogadishu could draw the weapon back and saw through his scalp, the man grabbed the assaulting wrist just above his forehead and squeezed it with giant strength.
Mogadishu grunted and released the shortsword, which fell from the man's head to the ground, and he felt his whole body rotated to the left via his wrist. So, he brought his other sword over to slash at the man's neck as his opponent stepped forward into the cut.
Mogadishu cut across the other's nose and face, but the man ignored the blow and threw his knee up into Mogadishu's armoured groin. He reeled back and as he stumbled the other man took a great, two-handed swing at him.

Taking his remaining shortsword in two hands, Mogadishu braced to block the swing with its blade. He blocked it, but he was pushed back a fair bit and the blade cracked. As the two men regained their composure, the enemy's face now completely covered in his own blood, Mogadishu's blade fell, broken from the hilt. He was now without a weapon.
His enemy quickly bent over and, though it took him a few moments to find the weapon, blinded by his blood, took the Mogadishu's other shortsword in his free hand. Clearly he was not trained in the art of wielding two weapons simultaneously, but he did deprive his enemy of a weapon.
Carefully the man approached his smaller opponent, with an ever increasing amount of blood pooling at his feet. He lunged again with his longsword, which Mogadishu moved aside to dodge, and then with Mogadishu inside his guard, the man thrust the shortsword at its owner.
But its owner weaved underneath the longsword and entangled his arms with the armed man's, having gotten more or less behind him.

The two struggled for a moment before Mogadishu jumped up on the other man's back. As the man swung the weapons up wildly at him, he caught his wrists and leaned forward, sending the two toppling. As they fell, Mogadishu abandoned the longsword's arm and twisted his own body to the side, moving the shortsword underneath his enemy. They hit the ground, and the shortsword was driven through the armed one's stomach, narrowly missing Mogadishu himself.
The victorious gladiator stood and looked down at the bloody mess that was his enemy. Then he ignored all cheering or booing, all words from the crowd as he returned to the armoury.

After cleaning himself up and visiting the mess hall, Mogadishu went back through all the halls, the common areas, their prison, and spoke to the guard in front of the Master's office.
"I need to speak to the Master."

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"All done?"_

Year 28

"Yes," Mogadishu replied to the guard as he shut the office door behind him, "you might want to leave him be for a while. I'm afraid he's upset."
"Oh, okay."
With a hand wrapped around the keys in his pocket, Mogadishu made his way through the arena works again. Only this time, instead of going to the armoury or his quarters, he went to the lobby for visitors, using the keys (the door was sufficient to guard against escapees, it was thought) to get through. Before going any further, he glanced around the lobby, making sure that there were no guards. Then he moved swiftly through the lobby and unlocked the front door, escaping the compound.
As he left, he was met with cold rain. Visibility was low and the air was loud with the crashing of rain onto the ground. So without supplies, with only the ring of keys and his pants, Mogadishu ran north to freedom.

[Black Rider]

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