Normally, hearing these words after a long night—or day—out would fill me with warmth, knowing home was near, that I could crawl into my bed or under Orthanq’s bar soon.
Now, it just made me wonder what calamity was about to befall me next.
I knew falling was involved, because it always was.
“Get ready!”
I tensed. I couldn’t help it. I had been well-trained after many unwelcome, unwarranted crash landings.
The feeling of flight is great—freeing, in fact—until you realize it is because Cretus has cut the rope holding you aloft and you are tumbling earthward in a net you cannot escape.
Like gravity.
I crashed to the ground like a misguided avalanche.
As I blacked out, I knew the headache from my crash would be worse than any hangover.
I woke up to birdsong after a night of terrible dreams of confinement and constriction.
Being caught in a tangled net on a mountainside will do that to an orc.
I ended up chewing my way through the rope to get out.
Not exactly one of my prouder moments, but you do what you have to do.
Humiliated, not from some drunken mistake or embarrassment but by the fact that I had been dumped, literally, by Cretus yet again, I found my way back to the trail leading to the Undercity in short order.
The sound of early morning foot traffic was a dead giveaway.
I felt dirty and used.
I needed to go home and get cleaned up.
Then I would be ready to hit the King’s Crown again to start the whole cycle over again.
Orthanq was going to be happy to see me, I was sure.
But first, home.
Post Epilogue
I found my way through the jumbled tangle of the Undercity’s corridors without hurting myself or anyone else.
That was always a plus.
Most especially for me, although others would appreciate the boon I granted if only they knew.
Monsters and denizens of the dark were busily lurching, shambling, and skulking through their day.
I fit right in.
In a city filled with nightmares, a battered, dehydrated, oversized orc shambling along is not worth a second glance.
Ignoring the luminous mushrooms, sparkling ooze, gaping fissures, ebony pools, delightful aromas of sulfurous pits, and phosphorescent tendrils that give the Undercity its distinctive romantic charm, I finally managed to fight my way to my front door through the waves of fatigue holding me back.
When I finally entered my cavern, my front door beckoned like the promised land.
I lumbered homeward with a burst of sleep-addled adrenaline.
I was so glad to be home, I nearly collapsed on the front slab.
I pressed my hand on the door’s palm reader and threw the door open as soon as the latch released.
I was so happy to be home, my heart skipped a beat.
It was almost like going to the bar and finding out my tab had been paid and all rounds were on the house.
“Draypheus! I’m home!” I hollered triumphantly to the one being who could care less whether I made it back safely or was turned into mulch.
I strode into the room ready to throw myself on my sorry excuse for a bed.
Except my bed was nowhere to be seen.
Nor was everything else I held not so dearly and cared very little about.
My heart filled with dismay.
Here’s the thing about drinking and then being dropped on your head from the sky at a height that would give a meteor pause. Both, especially when taken together, can make you do silly things, including not checking your door before brazenly opening it.
My much maligned, undersized poor excuse for a convertible mattress was nowhere to be seen because I was not in my room.
Or anywhere else I knew.
Draypheus did not pointedly ignore me with epic disdain because he was not perched on a bare shelf, my lone book, the empty counter, or anywhere else nearby. Though my metabolism had long since purged the intoxicants from my system, my concussed, sleep-deprived brain refused to work properly.
My head felt like it had been filled with gauze that had been lit on fire and then tumbled with giant boulders.
So, while my judgment might have been slightly off, I still had no excuse.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, and I’m an idiot.
Color me dumb.
“Ah! Grak! So good to have you!”
The voice, augmented by some unseen enchanted mechanism, echoed through the not-my-bedroom with the fervor and boom of summer thunder, colored by the rainbow hues of madness.
I found myself at the bottom of some kind of cross between a multi-leveled launch bay and a mad scientist’s lab. The room was a mixture of post-apocalyptic industrial grunge with a sickening dose of chaotic techno-organic profusion. Signs and sigils were spray-painted wildly on the walls like some drunk demon’s graffiti.
If I had to guess, I would say the space was decorated in early evil overlord with accents of modern apocalyptic anarchy. Weapons, numerous potential torture devices, and unidentified complex instrumentation were strewn everywhere, the decorations of virulent viciousness. The room was highlighted with a touch of lunacy tinted with broad strokes of megalomania.
Metal ladders, steel railings, and grilled landings were slathered all over the curved walls like icing on a gaudy, overworked cake at a madman’s wedding. Unidentifiable equipment chirped and beeped, spilling from these landings so thickly that devices hung from the floors and walls in a jungle of unchecked technological vines and plants.
In the center of the surreal chamber, a giant diamondesque crystal was held suspended in a shimmering field of liquid force above an iridescent piece of metallic slag. The mass of sinter beneath the deity-sized jewel was studded with lights emanating from kaleidoscopic crystals embedded in the rough mineral surface. Thick cables radiated outward from the ory base, snaking all over the room as the lines split into smaller and smaller strands reaching into the floor and weaving upward along the walls.
Whatever that thing in the room’s center was, I knew it was important.
And probably not intended for anything good.
Hearing my voice reverberate from the walls as I greeted my absent roommate, masses of gnomes dressed for a dystopian jamboree took a break from bustling to and fro amongst the high-tech mess to get a look at me.
They did not look pleased.
They weren’t the only ones.
With arms akimbo, his face radiating a smile filled with madness, a spry gnome in flowing ebon robes was standing by the colossal floating gem power source, command station, or whatever nefarious thing it was. His thick eyebrows erupted from his forehead like some grotesque shelf fungus or table coral.
He could probably decapitate someone with those things.
This lunatic was the one who had so kindly welcomed me to this madhouse.
I use the term ‘welcomed’ loosely, since the gnome was incorrigibly evil and obviously wanted to kill me.
The gun-like wand he held pointing menacingly toward me read ‘orc-killing sociopath’ much more than ‘eccentric but friendly gnomish inventor inviting me into his secret lair’.
I had a discerning eye for subtle clues.
It was a shame I had not reloaded my canines. I could have lit this lair up like the macrocosmos after the Big Bang. This place certainly looked like it could use a little bit of cleansing fire and light.
Too bad I was out of matches.
“Usually, at this point, I would take the time to tell you all the ways you have thwarted our plans, how we intend to kill you, and what we will do to reinstate those plans after your demise.
“But, having read Nemesis, I know that is the course of folly.”
Honestly, he must have just skimmed Nemesis, because this guy was still yammering on. He certainly hadn’t taken any of the book’s lessons to heart.
Not needing to
hear any more, I charged.
There is no better time to counter a megalomaniac than when he is building up a full head of chatter talking about his own grandeur.
When I need to be, I’m fast. For an orc my size, at least for a short distance, I am exceptionally fast.
I am not, however, faster than the reaction time of an augmented gnome with his finger on the trigger of a loaded wand.
Blinding light flashed, trailed by the resounding boom! of thunder. Something hit me in the chest with the force of a battering ram as I rocketed backward hard enough to bury myself in the metal wall and the raw stone behind.
This seemed to be happening rather frequently.
Too frequently.
Note to self: Stop getting smashed into walls so hard that you’re completely embedded and nearly pulped.
As my world shrank with the darkness of unconsciousness creeping in, I did what any orc in my position would do.
I went with plan B.
I whistled.
Loudly.
Or as loudly as an orc losing consciousness after being smashed into a wall at a speed that would be envied by objects pining to achieve atmospheric escape velocity can manage.
Plan A, charging into the fray like the unstoppable juggernaut I was not, had resulted in me nearly splattering all over these lovely post-technomodern walls.
Plan A really should not have been a plan at all.
But throwing out my go-to response to danger is hard.
If I survived, I would need to remember to discard plan A for something with at least a minute chance of success.
In fairness to plan A, the real plan A had been to use my canine cannons to blast the gnomes here to plasma, but my tooth guns were not presently an option.
As a corollary to plan A, if I survived, I needed to upgrade my tooth cannons to something with more than one shot.
Maybe Yocto could make a replenishing version.
Plan B, which should have been plan A but was now really plan C, was my next option, even if I was loath to take it.
Plan B was getting my brother to help.
Whistling was my way of getting his attention.
For most people, asking for familial help is no big deal. It’s a no-brainer. Although I don’t have much of a brain, even I can see the benefit.
However, my brother is not most brothers.
I had promised my mom that I would take care of my brother after we left the clan.
And I have.
I also keep him confined in an extradimensional pocket dimension on the off chance he decides to either take over or destroy the world.
Luckily for everyone on any given world, my brother is lazy. He would rather sit around and watch projections, play games, eat crummy food, and sleep than conquer the known universe.
This is a good thing, because I would hate to spend my valuable drinking time trying to stop him.
I know exactly how that would turn out.
With me pounded into mush in some wall.
So, at this particular moment, my brother was happy in his well-stocked pocket dimension, and I was happy he was in there.
Except that now I needed him to come out.
When the time came, I could only hope he would go back in.
I whistled—although it was more like a wheeze at this point—again.
Something Else After the Epilogue
My brother burst from the pouch at my waist like a lightning fire tornado exploding from the top of an erupting volcano.
If you can imagine such a thing.
He was a dynamo of destruction.
He was a bomb ready to detonate, a baby bomb that would blow apart his foes as surely as dust flies before the wind.
If I had to guess the source of his rage, aside from a blissful upbringing as part of a race embroiled in an unending universal war against all sentient beings, it would probably be my summons making him miss his favorite game show, disturbing one of his meals, or forcing him to pause a virtual game at a particularly important point.
Those things would really set my brother off.
The worst, though, was if someone interrupted one of his naps.
If the destruction left in his wake was truly cataclysmic, I would know his rest had been disturbed.
Even beyond that, if it is possible to imagine such horror, would be if someone had disturbed his nap by taking away his pacifier or blanket.
There are once-thriving worlds that are now empty and devoid of life because such atrocities were visited upon my brother.
For the sake of everyone on Unea, I hoped he had not lost his paci.
Satisfied that I had done all I could, and happy to see the chew-resistant paci in his mouth and his blanky in hand, with my head ringing from the impact with the wall, I blacked out.
Or tried to.
Pain hit me like the wall I had just crushed as a world of agony and nausea engulfed me, bursting outward from my gut, spiraling through my bowels, and crashing into my skull.
My vision danced and swam as I lost control of my legs.
Falling to the floor, I threw up.
As I writhed in uncontrollable anguish, consciousness evaporated along with my ability to ever sire an heir to my mighty legacy.
Full of brotherly love, seeing the depth of my need, my brother had been kind enough to halt his reckless advance long enough to punch me in the groin and deposit his treasures safely in the pouch while I slumped to the floor.
I felt his love for me because he had been kind enough to check the blow.
I took solace knowing that I was not alone in my screams, for my brother was at work.
My brother was a blur, a small, imp-like, inexorable death-dealing blur. He surged forward faster than the eye could track, a minuscule blender of destruction. Scarlet explosions followed his erratic advance through the chamber.
I should add that my brother and I are entirely unalike. While Chaos gifted me with an overlarge resilient frame, an exaggerated prototypical orcanda male, my brother is entirely different.
My brother is cherubic. Cute, even.
His physical development never progressed beyond that of a tiny toddler, an adorable, snuggly, grim reaper in baby form.
What he lacks in size, he makes up for with sheer havoc.
Among the orcanda, my brother is most honored. Chaos gave my brother the gift of Itself.
He and the anti-negentropy gnomes should get along nicely.
My brother’s name is Gruke.
The room came alive with the sights, smells, and sounds of combat.
Bursts of magic, spells woven and unleashed in flurried frenzies of will filled the room with surging gouts of power. Scintillating rainbows of energy flew from gnomes’ fingers as they blasted counterspells, curses, and enfeeblements. Waves of minuscule machines swarmed protectively around gnomes lacking body armor and enhancing those who did. Shards of crystalline blades sliced through the air. Glyphs, sigils, and runes inscribed the air with defensive enchantments. Myriad technowizardry contraptions flared defensively to life, from animated, self-guided razor-tipped umbrellas to assorted sentry drones.
Quickly evaluating the risks and the likelihood of success of potential action, I played dead.
After the blow from my brother, I did not have to play very hard.
A flash of force burst around the gnome standing near the central command crystal as Gruke ricocheted off the gnome’s protective shield. Unconcerned that his quarry had eluded him, for he would be back, my brother launched upward and away to a nearby mezzanine, where he scythed through a line of gnomes who had not been as quick to respond as the gnome who had welcomed me to his hidden bastion of evil.
Without regard for the equipment lining the walls or the gnomes who had been using them, the gnomish grandmaster of welcome sent an indigo gout of hellfire tearing across the landing after Gruke. A coruscating trail of molten slag and charred corpses was all that was left in the spell’s wake.
Well, that
and the echoing screams of the dying.
More gnomes flooded in, releasing furious Paratechnological displays of power.
Although no longer a direct target, I was battered, tumbled, thrown and rolled across the chamber like an untethered sailor on the deck of a ship taking water in a typhoon.
Magic washed over me like the sea, trying to pull me overboard and drown me in its depths.
Luckily, my magic resistance and my hard head protected me from the worst of the damage.
Unluckily, I was turned polka-dotted by the radiant effects of one particularly potent spell.
I did not want to know what would have happened had I been the direct target of the gnomes’ ire.
Playing dead has its advantages.
My brother, though far more formidable than I, was being tossed around the chamber like a leaf in a storm. Snaking tendrils, webbed nets, bolts of force, concussive blasts, clouds of robotic warriors, strands of confetti, entangling streamers, delightful balloons, summoned minions, annihilating singularities, debilitating curses, delicious flying food, beguiling illusions, and droves of other terrors and enticements assailed him at every turn.
Gruke might take a few more gnomes with him, but even he would not survive the gathered might of ANGST much longer.
Something had to be done.
I knew just the orc to do it.
These gnomes needed a whipping, and I had the perfect tool for it.
Cleverly concealed amidst the chaos by my kaleidoscopic polka dots, I unlatched my enchanted chain belt.
I would not be able to get close, even with the help of my new variegated camouflage, but I did not have to get near them. I just had to throw a gnome wrench into the works.
And the gnomes had been kind enough to give me the perfect wrench.
While my brother careened from wall to wall like a lunatic beach ball smacked to and fro at an asylum pool party, holding the gnomes’ collected attention, I sprang, or, more accurately, lay into action.
Remaining on the ground, I ripped my eldritch chain belt off and whipped it overhead in a violent arc. Weighted by the manacles and the links binding them, the chain spun overhead in a vicious blur. Torqueing the chain as hard as my considerable weight and strength would allow, I lashed outward, throwing the unbound shackles with all my might toward the gigantic diamond at the room’s center.
Grak: Private Instigator (Orc PI Book 1) Page 17