Grak 2
Orc on Vacation
Joseph J Bailey
Smash faces and take names.
Maybe not in that order.
—Grak
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Epilogue
After-Epilogue
Post-After-Epilogue
What Came Next
Something Else
Help Spread the Word!
Glossary of Terms
About the Author
Synopsis
1
I was thirsty.
No, ‘thirsty’ was an understatement.
I was parched.
My mouth was filled with dust.
My tongue was so swollen, I could hardly swallow.
I needed something to drink.
Anything.
It had to have been at least a few hours since I had had a drink.
Before anyone gets all judgmental and nitpicky, I would like to add that these had been a very long few hours.
I had been orcnapped not once but twice by a group of entropy-loving gnome Paratechnological terrorists who were Abyss-bent on bringing down Alyon and all her Citizens by turning them into ravenous, friend-eating mutagenic monsters.
I had been bound in chains and blasted more times, in more ways, by more types of weaponry than I care to, or, quite frankly, can recall.
I had been attacked by an unending stream of enraged, magic-wielding gnomes who only saw me as an obstacle to their plans for world undominion.
I had been tossed from one calamity to the next by friend and foe alike, smashing into more walls and floors than my fragile ego will allow me to remember.
And last, but certainly not least, I had had a mountain collapse on top of me while I was beating the aforementioned gnomes to pulp after their base exploded.
With me in it.
This was after I had thrown the former chains of my imprisonment—a magical chainbelt—that had been torn from their grubby hands into the enormous crystal powering their nefarious operations.
So here I lay.
Under a mountain.
Tired.
Thirsty.
And broken, unable to fully heal or escape.
The pain I felt as my body tried to restore itself against the weight and pressure of all this stone was excruciating.
It was almost as painful as the voice in my head telling me that I needed a drink.
I did my best to block out both with my ‘go to’ option in times of duress—thoughts of something else I enjoyed almost as much or more than whatever was afflicting me.
Since there was very little in the macroverse I cared about as much as a nice, cold drink, this was a particularly daunting task, one that was almost hopeless, in fact.
Just the effort of coming up with something, anything, as desirable as a drink right now was almost as painful as the need for a drink itself.
However, there was one light that was finally brave enough to peek, albeit briefly, around the corner at the end of this long, dark, thirsty tunnel.
The annual Macroversal Wizarding Championships were about to begin.
If I could survive long enough to get out from under this mountain, I would be treated to the greatest spectacle that sentient imagination had ever created: watching teams of ill-prepared wizards battling one another on fields of combat, struggling in common trials, and working together to solve obstacles no sane orc would ever waste his time attempting.
The joy of random, hysterical chaos that ensued was like nothing else.
If only I could make it.
2
Someone was close.
I felt the tickle of failed magic on my skin.
I have the gift of being resistant to magic—not to mention, I am also tough as adamantium nails and regenerate like a salamander on arcane steroids. So, while I cannot cast spells, very few are able to harm me—nor is much else able to, for that matter, present situation included.
This is a gift that gives both ways.
At that moment, I wanted my money back.
The macroverse could keep its gift.
I just wanted out of this rock pile.
Unfortunately, getting myself out might not be as easy as retrieving someone else.
That magical tingle was hope.
And hope was beer.
Or eventual access to it.
Aside from myself, and my brother hanging out in his pocket dimension in the pouch at my side, I was relatively confident that no one else had survived the explosion that now entombed me. Or, if they had, I doubted they were still buried under the mountain.
ANGST—Anti-Negentropy Gnomes Strike for Truth, a band of terrorist gnomes whose lair I had recently destroyed—were either all dead or, if they were lucky, had teleported away. There might be a few stragglers too injured to leave but whose exoarmor might have allowed them to survive, but I doubted it.
Gruke—my brother—had been pretty thorough in the beatdown he had delivered.
And the subsequent explosion created by shattering their giant power crystal with my chain belt should have mopped up the rest.
But the macroverse was vast, mysterious, and full of creative and unexpected ways to try to kill me.
As much as I hoped that ANGST had bitten the dust, chances were, they were but a small cog in a much larger Cube Gnomeberg machine designed to smash me into tiny, irrecoverable bits.
On the bright side, I had done far more smashing of ANGST than they had done to me. In my book, that was a win.
Even when I was stuck under kilotons of compacted rubble.
“Grak, is that you?” a tiny voice flitted just outside my ear, causing a tickling prickle that I could not itch.
“Mmmuummm…” I replied succinctly, the massive stones and shredded metal from the lab’s destruction imparting a certain limited elegance to my answer.
Loosely translated, this was, “Yocto! It’s me!”
I could not speak to Paratechnological translation devices, but I hoped the clear need in my tone would give my gnomish friend everything he needed to get me the Abyss out.
“Great! We’ll get you out shortly! Help is on the way! Or, it’s here already.
“You know what I mean…
“We’re triangulating your position. It’s difficult with all the magical fields and residue interfering with our measurements.
“Plus, you have a mountain on top of you.”
“Nnnnaaammmm…” I growled. My effort to say, “I know that!” was a bit jumbled by my inability to open my mouth.
That happens when you have a mountain on your head.
I speak with absolute certainty on this.
3
I felt another tingle, this one a bit more distant, like someone was casting a spell near and around, but not on, me.
Then the mountain collapsed with a terrific rumble, boulders falling everywhere.
I was done!
My body was thrust and heaved back and forth as the stones shifted, the mountain’s protestations throwing me around wildly.
I did not pop like a grape.
Surprisingly.
It was also bright.
Too bright for me to open my eyes.
Which was even more surprising.
Why was I not mush?
“Grak, are you okay?”
Someone called hesitantly from a distance.
Yocto?
What was he doing under the mountain?
Although I was surrounded by rocks, I could now move.
Was I under the mountain?
I took stock of my situation.
Eyes still closed, I felt the roughness of rocks below and rocks beside but nothing pressing on me.
I tried sitting up.
The pain was too great, and I fell back down with a groan.
“Get him out of here! Let’s go!”
There were more flashing lights and lots of noise, the sounds of many voices and machinery, as I was whisked away.
Being under the mountain had been so much quieter.
Unable to take any more, my body succumbed to darkness and I knew no more.
Expecting the worst, I slowly opened my eyes.
I had not expected worse enough.
I was back in the hospital.
The hospital was the one place guaranteed to be more painful than being underneath a mountain.
Soothing imagery shifted along the walls—a tropical beach with glistening white sands and luminous azure waters rolled beneath a clear sky. Palm trees swayed to the sound of wind dancing in the leaves as surf lapped gently in the distance.
There was even a soft, salt-tinged breeze.
This was all a clever trap intended to distract the room’s occupants from the horrors waiting within.
Once more, just like the last time I was here, I could not move.
My arms were pulled tightly above my head.
My feet were stretched away from me.
Both my hands and feet were bound and unable to move.
I was stretched to my limits.
I looked around as best I could.
I was in a full body cast of some milky polymeric shell. Unlike the last time I was confined here, my arms and legs were affixed to wound metallic bands pulling my body outward under immense tension, like a gigantic bow—a specially designed rack to supplement my worst healing nightmares.
Without having to guess, I knew this was intended to allow my body to reorder itself while it healed in as natural a shape as possible.
With the maximum amount of pain.
My joints were on fire.
I longed to be back under the mountain, crushed by suffocating tons of rubble.
I ground my teeth with the agony of my predicament.
How had I managed to stay unconscious at all?
I opened my mouth to scream, to unleash a primal roar of challenge and frustration.
Then the door opened, and all my pain melted away.
The room was bathed in liquid light, so thick I could feel its touch. It was warm and pleasant, soothing and restoring. My mind calmed immediately, and I relaxed into its glow.
At the heart of this radiance, Doctor Ilnyea stood with her hands on her angelic hips, a look of disapproval on her beatific face. “I thought I asked you not to come back here,” she said reprimandingly.
“I tried, Doc, but an army of angry gnome terrorists Abyss-bent on bringing universal entropy thought otherwise.
“On the bright side, the gnomes are gone, the city is safe, and I’m back here with you.” I wove my wondrous orcanda charms like a fisherman reeling in the season’s most important catch.
Doctor Ilnyea would have none of it. She snorted dismissively, her refulgent aura becoming so intense that my eyes watered and my skin began to grow hot within the protective plastic cast. “I asked you not to get killed. You will not be able to realize your potential if you are dead.”
Her tone was calm but firm. The waves of power crashing into me as her nimbus materialized were merely firmly, if dangerously, emphasizing her point.
“Point taken,” I said a bit too quickly.
I was beginning to sweat.
She put off more light than the sun illuminating the beach projected on the walls surrounding us.
The next time deranged villains threaten the city, I am going to suggest that the Home Guard unleash Doctor Ilnyea on them.
“Just because you have done this city a great service does not mean you can go and get yourself killed.”
Nothing like a bit of appreciation and support from the good doctor.
I laughed uncomfortably, mostly because her glare had translated into arcing beams of plasma that threatened to melt my immobilizing shell…and me with it. “I’ll try to do a better job of not getting killed,” I promised.
And meant it.
Since I had not been killed yet, I reckoned I was doing pretty well.
“That is not good enough, Grak. The city needs champions. We cannot afford to lose you.”
Champion?
All I was good at was losing.
I thought Ilnyea’s glow was addling her brain.
She must be delusional, hallucinating from her own emanations.
Trying to shrug, but unable to within my taut confinement, I managed, “Doc, I’m just a detective, a poor one at that.”
“You are what you need to be, Grak. You have done what few others could.”
A self-satisfied smile slowly revealed itself on my face.
I really had little say in the matter.
My smirk had a mind of its own.
“Do not overestimate yourself, Grak! That is a sure way to get yourself killed.”
My smile quickly disappeared.
With pep talks like these, who needed lectures?
I wanted to get well just so I could avoid taking any more abuse.
“I hope not to see you any time soon,” she said firmly, turning to leave.
“Even if I ask you to have a drink?” I threw the offer out casually, without thinking. In fact, the words were out of my mouth before I realized I had said them.
Apparently, my smirk was not the only thing with a mind of its own.
What angel would hang out with an orc?
Her smile nearly melted my face off. “Even if you asked me out for a drink,” she replied silkenly.
If I had not been immobilized, I would have had to pick my jaw up off the floor.
I might have a chance to go out with an angel!
There was a light knock on the door.
“How ya doin’, Grak?” Kordeun stuck his head into the room tentatively, perhaps fearful of the wrath of Doctor Ilnyea.
“Come on in,” I managed through the mounting pain left after Doctor Ilnyea’s passage.
Dressed formally in a glimmering chainmail hauberk, his braided beard combed and glistening, displaying his kazzak to full effect, his many tattoos alight on his skin, Kordeun was the epitome of dwarven strength and dignity.
“What’s the occasion?” I asked, never having seen Kordeun so finely dressed.
“Ya’re tha occasion.
“Wherever Yocto and I go, someone from InAction News or some such is there ta follow and pepper us with questions. Just showin’ tha people o’ our fair city a bit o’ respect and appreciation.”
“For what?” I asked.
Kordeun looked at me incredulously, as if I should know. “Fer tha tributes. Are ya daft?”
Honestly, I do not think there ever was a time anyone would argue that I was anything other than some colorful combination of foolish, stupid, and insane, but I did not want to bring Kordeun down when he was obviously go
ing to so much effort.
“Very nice of you,” I offered neutrally, unsure what else to say.
“When ya’re out o’ here, ya’ll see in person.”
“I’ve seen enough in person. I need a break from seeing things in person.”
Kordeun snorted. “That’s not gonna be happenin’ any time soon, so long as ya stay here. Ya saved tha city, Grak! Least, that’s how tha people see it!”
I snorted in kind. “The city is doing fine without me, and it will continue to do just fine.”
“I don’t think tha city agrees.”
I grunted. Not looking forward to another doctor’s call, I asked, “When do I get outta here?”
“Yocto’s workin’ on it. He should be back any time now.”
I had my doubts. About both Yocto and getting out. “Will he be back to get me released, or with food?”
Kordeun grinned devilishly. “See, that’s why ya’re a good detective. Ya see right through tha luerdan.”
I imagined luerdan was pretty hard to see through, detective or not, but I was not going to argue the case. Trolls had very little need to see through their feces. They lived in them.
“Both,” Kordeun finally replied. “He’ll be bringin’ us some grub and news o’ yer dismissal.”
“Sounds good. I want to get out of this cast more than I wanted to get out from under the mountain.”
“Ya’ll have ta tell us all about it.”
Before I could reply, there was another knock at the door.
“Come in!” I yelled. My voice had a decided twang. Perhaps it had something to do with being strung up like clothes left to dry in the hot summer sun.
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