The Golden Bandit, Liu Mang, Goes On a Mission!
"So, what you're saying is that the Jingshen Prince eyed you like a seasonal roasted lamb, and let you in?" Liu Mang grinned wolfishly.
"Oh by the Devils don't say it like that! Brrr!" The man at his side bristled while Liu guffawed. The others in the bar gave them a shifty look for the noise, but otherwise left them in their corner alone.
"So how should I say it? That he wanted a side of lamb to go with his sauce? Wanted a farmer's hand for the shearing? Sought a wobbler for their cobbler? Needed an extra cock baaaa-locker?" "Stop, stop, Heavens damn you stop!"
Tears were running down his face as Liu hooked an arm over the guy's shoulder, who in turn was trying his best to drown all memories of the fact in drink.
In fact, he was so out of it, that he would come to regret the words that would come out of his mouth for years to come.
"Hey, Barkeep! A shot of the top-shelf stuff for my friend, would you!"
But how was he supposed to know the damned 'top shelf' stuff was paid in mid-grade stones!
… … …
"Bloody trumped up wine, bloody desert, bloody Jingshen…"
Liu could only curse himself and his big mouth for having to treck northward with cape and turban to make a weak-ass group of bandits somehow survive actual cultivators with… some lizard meat he'd hunted an hour prior and some spare mediocre weapons supplied to 'furnish our bandits' with?
What, he should teach them? He, who had to fight his ass off to reach the first level of Qi Condensation? Who could barely make heads or tails of that weird technique tower, and just near-put himself into debt?
Hah! Hope they enjoy swallowing beast cores, that's a much more solid bet!
And obviously getting caught by the Jingshen would see him turned into the same bloody pile that Dragon Yao made of him, only without the recovery and decent soup, so Liu was stuck treading through torturous heat and the flowing sands in one of the many, many unmarked and rarely patrolled paths into the region.
Or at least, he was, til a group of men popped from all around him, weapons in hand. Ten in total, garbed in the colors of sand and rocks, making a somewhat proper encirclement of the cultivator.
Well, somewhat, since one was still flailing to throw off a scorpion that stuck to his cloak.
"Surrender your valuables, or surrender your life!"
The words hadn't left the leader's lips that, as one, the encirclement slowly began to tighten.
Liu Mang oversaw the whole thing.
Decent leadership.
Decent men, though that incident with the scorpion lost them a couple points.
Weapons looked better than the sorry axe at his side, though it remained to see wether the grade was equal to the stuff he was carrying.
… good enough for the job, Liu surmised, as he leapt towards the leader palm open. Surprisingly enough, the man was able to block the initial attack with the flat of his blade, which promptly shattered from the blow.
Unsurprisingly, he couldn't quite block the kick to the stomach that followed. He rolled for quite a few meters before coming to a dead stop, clutching his stomach and barely moving.
… Liu would be quite irked if that did any serious damage.
Next came the closest two bandits, who were just as quickly eliminated from a double palm to their stomachs, but in turn managed to claim blood for their group. In the following moments that Liu spent trouncing them properly into the sands, he felt his sense of vertigo soaring and plunging, and his sight went cross-eyed for a moment.
But Liu could feel the call of the beat, the roll of the strike that would end it all, hold it back from striking true. He was only testing them after all, and if this bit of poison was what did him in, then that's be a poor showing wouldn't it?
Plus, the damned tower of learning and all those scrolls were much worse than this poison, so Liu was able to soldier on, and just as easily defeat the last two bandits that made up the half of the encirclement he's charged to.
In the scant minute of battle, the bandits at his back charged forward resolutely, with the understanding that their foe was beyond their ability to defeat, yet loyal to the group that they fought with.
Instead, Liu merely jumped beyond those he'd initially defeated, and sat on a rock. The bandits, weary of a trap, approached their fallen slowly, whilst Liu waved them forwards.
"Hey, hey. If I wanted y'all dead, you'd be dead. Get them up and going, would ya?"
Liu's smile was a crooked, twisted thing, and only increased their worries.
"Got something to talk about with your boss."
… … …
The sun was setting over the horizon, dry heat giving way to chilling winds. Insects and scavengers and more now trundle from their hiding spots across the sands, seeking livelihood and a way to prolong their existence. And behind them hunters stalked their next meals, or waited in their on holes to ambush the unwary.
Underneath the most primal of laws, in a nondescript location under the cover of a lone nondescript baobab tree, stood Liu Mang in front of twenty-odd people, the previous bandits and their families. Women and children behind the men, they were a sorry sight, one and all. Near-impoverished, all but devouring the last of his lizard meat, going so far as to burn their mouths as they all huddled around the fire.
"Us brothers and sister, fathers and mothers and sons and daughters fought the good fight against the damned bastards. Poison, ambushes, the whole works. This…" Yang Zhi, leader of the Desert Stalkers, swings the stick with meat in his hand to the outcropping, "…is what's left. We know of a couple groups that have made better for themselves, went further in to attack more lucrative caravans. Never heard of them again. So…"
He munches on the meat, grimacing at the rough, leathery texture, and after a rough swallow continued to speak to Liu.
"So what are you proposing we do better?"
Throwing his stick into the fire, Liu lays on the stone, thinking over what he'd seen so far.
"Well, for starters, y'all are weak as hell. Poisoned and outnumbered, it still wasn't enough to deal with me, let alone the Jingshen. Also, whoever decided to tango with the scorpion, next time just cut it off, yeah? Or cut it, might be even simpler."
Yang bristled and the others glared at his nonchalance of uttering their families' murderers, but Liu didn't give a damn.
"Second, your eyes must be shit to just pop and attack anyone treading the back doors, and frankly, are lucky to not have been exterminated by now. Goes to show how much your efforts changed things, huh?"
Now there was hate in their eyes, if looks could kill…
Well, if theirs could, anyhow. Liu wouldn't be surprised if higher leveled cultivators pulled it off, they were supposedly even more bullshit than just that.
"And lastly, whatever that poison was, it obviously don't work that well if you guys couldn't take advantage of it, so you might want to upgrade. Same with everyone's toys but yours, little Yang."
"Oh~. Look at the mighty cultivator telling us to get more power, better tools, and more people." There was vitriol in his gruff voice, and hate, and anger. Both at Liu, and at their situation. "So, once again: why should we place all our bets, our lives, on your words? On you?"
"Oh, I most certainly wouldn't." Liu Mang rose up, and stared straight into Yang's eyes. "The moment you guys don't prove worth my time, I'm out of here. The moment you guys falter, the sand won't settle from my steps before you don't see me no more. You don't trust someone that hasn't proven themselves. Ever."
"But I'm currently y'all's best chance to rise up. With me as a protector, you can start hunting the weakest beasts, absorb their cores, become cultivators in your own right. With me at your side, you can target richer foes, guarded caravans, and possibly more. Should you all prove worthy of me, this poverty, this struggle… all a distant nightmare."
They huddled around him, and Liu let them.
"Or, we could get jumped by a Foundation Expert and obliterated. But, well, risk of the trade, wouldn't y'all say?"
Grabbing his pack, there was one flask of the cheapest wine the bar would allow him to buy after the fiasco that brought him out there, and a few cups.
One drink in hand, his upturned sack in the other, and filled cups offered to Yang and the closest to him, Liu Mang grinned savagely with them all as dozens upon dozens of weapons dropped on the ground.
"Let's take our pound of flesh before cursing the Heavens with our presence, shall we?"
… … …
With his leadership, the Desert Stalkers gained… well, one Liu Mang.
But with him at their side, as he said, they were able to start hunting bigger fish, bigger beasts, and draw themselves out of that slippery slope they'd been in.
Sure, they'd lost some good men and women along the way, most notably that one guy just couldn't stop getting unlucky with scorpions and finally ended up getting dragged away by an irate Giant Mother Scorpion, but more would make their way to the Stalkers one way or the other. The worst would be dealt with in silence rather than being let loose upon the sands, but most would join the gang in their hate for the Jingshen, and the promise of survival. Of course there were those that would wish to leave for greener pastures, but Yang would hold upon them an oath of silence that they may not be tortured for information on the gang should they let it be known they were once part of it.
Or, well, supposedly, but Liu figured it had to work somewhat since no one had barged into their particular tree trunk just yet.
They were now dealing with the cleanup and shakedown of a conquered caravan, the merchant in the seat softly cursing them as the Stalkers took as much as they could. Liu stood silently on the side, surrounded by the corpses of the guards, the weakest of them having been left alive to spread word of of their successful pillaging.
It would help draw the Jingshen away from their main target later that week.
"Accursed bandits, know that the Jingshen Main House shall strike you all down with the vengeance of the Heavens! Hang your corpses from the town banners, that all learn of the fate of your kind!"
"Heh."
Lifting his foot off of the guard's head, the emblem of the Jingshen emblazoned on the chest piece, he roughly tore up on the hair, bringing them face to face.
"Ya hear that, boya? You gonna get us one day, gonna kill us and torture us and impale us and whatever else you can come up with. But you know what? That day just ain't today."
"… Twin Axe Demon."
Liu grinned at the monicker, having earned it in a previous raid by killing a Jingshen cultivator by surprise, taking the man hand axe in one hand and his own in the other, and going on a killing spree on the rest of the guards.
Kind of like today, he surmised, but without grabbing another hand axe. Liu didn't quite think he could pull off swinging a third with his mouth.
"Well, at least you ain't a sheep-fucker like one of your Princes! Don't quite mind dying by your hand, rather than being handed to those
freaks." He shook his head woefully at that, while the beaten guard stared at him confused.
"… What?"
"Hoh~" Liu Mang's grin turned wolffish.
"You didn't know?"
_____________________________
Word Count: 2027
Note: If Liu Mang's fate hasn't been rolled, please add this to the odds. If it has, and he has survived, Turn 12 is gonna be either healing treasure or LST.
It could have used a bit more work, some polish here and there, but wanted to turn out one last thing before Liu's fate was sealed, for good and for ill.
