by Edward Brody
“Argh!” the assembled orcs yelled.
“For Ergoth!” the orc in black cried, raising his finger.
“For Ergoth!” the orcs all yelled in unison.
The King’s son turned and shoved the robed orc out of the way before disappearing back inside the lookout tower.
The robed orc stumbled a little, straightened his robe, and turned back to face the gathered orcs. He raised both arms into the air. “Ergoth is the greatest orc who ever lived!”
“Argh!”
“For Ergoth!” the robed man yelled.
“For Ergoth!” the orcs cheered.
When the robed man turned and went back into the tower, the assembled orcs scattered to go back to whatever they were doing. Eventually, the tall orc who had been injured made it to his feet and scurried over to help the smaller orc—still with no help from anyone else.
What the hell was that? I wondered. It was obviously a rally, and the orcs—much like the orc mother I had found in the Freelands—all seemed confident that they would actually defeat Highcastle. But I had no idea what the dynamics of the black robed man were or why he would injure his own people. And if they were so confident that they could win, what the hell were they waiting for? It wouldn’t do them any good to let Highcastle pick off their camps in the Freelands one by one.
I felt uneasy about entering the Wastelands after seeing the orcs and wondered if maybe Sung and the rest of my crew were right. The orcs seemed savage, and maybe killing the baby was a better option than finishing the quest. If I recalled right at that moment, I had at least netted a new pair of boots, so it wasn’t a total waste of time.
Still, when I thought of the image of the orc baby and its mother’s pleas for help, I couldn’t help but feel obligated to try. I had, after all, played a partial role in her death. I felt like her blood was on my hands.
One try… I thought. One try... I had already come too far to leave without trying.
I wasn’t going to let the Wastelands be a repeat of Dragon’s Crest where I found myself getting killed multiple times to save Adeelee. If I died in the Wastelands or something went terribly wrong, it was game over. As cold as it sounded, I’d drop the baby off in the Freelands near the Scourge and leave the rest up to fate—no more being soft.
I took a few steps back and opened the disguise kit. From what I remembered I was supposed to rub the Spirited Water on my face first, so I found that vial and popped it. I didn’t have precise instructions, so I just poured the water in one of my hands, then splashed it on my face like I was applying aftershave. It had a slight fragrant scent that made me feel refreshed, but otherwise felt like regular water.
As instructed, I unhooked the Stabilizing Medallion from the inner cover of the disguise kit and placed it around my neck.
When I popped the vial of the Shapeshifter’s Blood, I sniffed it first, which was a mistake. My nose tingled and instantly felt like it was closing up like I had a cold. The scent was strong, like burnt cooking oil—nothing like the smell of blood that I would expect. I put the vial up to my lips, but I had to hold my breath to muster the strength dump the blood in my mouth.
My tongue didn’t like the Shapeshifter’s Blood. It tingled and stung, but even though it felt a bit painful, my health bars stayed full. It tasted as bad as it smelled, only ten times stronger, and it caused me to cough several times after I swallowed. I rubbed my tongue across the roof of my mouth, trying to rub the terrible aftertaste away.
I lifted the Mask of Possibilities carefully out of the faux spell book and took one last look at it before putting it up to my face and pulling the strap behind my head.
The scent of dry straw mixed with the fragrant water on my face. Energy coursed over my body, and the amulet that hung from my neck started to glow.
With only basic knowledge of how to operate the kit, I focused on becoming an orc, and then started imagining the orcs I had seen just moments ago in the Wastelands. Orc, orc, orc… disguise me as an orc, I thought.
The amulet grew brighter, and I felt the sensation of movement under the mask, as if bugs were crawling all over my face. My whole body began to glow, and when I looked down, it was as if the surface of my skin were a bubbling, shifting ocean. I felt no pain, but my vision blurred when I blinked and moved my hands.
My sight briefly went dark, and I felt as if I rose into the air. But a second later, I could see again, and when I looked down, my feet were still firmly on the ground. They weren’t my normal feet, however. They were thick and bulky feet fitted in rough leather boots with fur etched across the top.
You are disguised.
I looked at my hands, which had turned swollen and green, and my robe had changed into a dirty fur toga with a rope wrapped around my waist. When I inspected the material, I could see the stats were for my mage’s robe along with a message telling me that it had been disguised. The mask and amulet were gone.
The staff on my back had changed into a low-level, non-magical one-handed axe, and when I gripped it, there was a similar message with the stats of my staff and the fact that it was disguised as something else. The only thing that was virtually the same was my unburdening bag, but even it had changed to look a bit rougher and primal. I couldn’t see the hair on my head, but upon touch, I felt that I had a basic short cut of thick, bristly hair.
I pulled up my stats, and everything was the same. Unlike a true polymorph, the disguise kit had changed nothing but my appearance.
I laughed and startled myself at the guttural tone of my voice, then laughed again at my sound.
I sounded like an orc! I reached up and touched two sizable fangs jutting over my upper lip.
“Yo!” I said in my new voice. “What’s up?!”
I wished that Aaron was there to see me. He would’ve gotten a good kick out of the whole thing.
I hopped around and started dancing in my new, fake body. “An orc is an orc, of course of course, and no one can mess with an orc, of course, unless of course, the orc of course, is the famous Mr… erm…” I paused, not sure how to finish my stupid little song. Did orcs have last names? Any with single syllables? After a few moments of thought, I realized the song didn’t make sense no matter how I phrased it and I was just wasting time.
I took a moment to practice acting like an orc. I tilted my shoulders forward and marched furiously, then raised my axe in the air. “For Ergoth!”
I figured all I needed to do was act like an aggressive dickhead obsessed with his dear leader, and I would fit right in. At least I hoped.
I started searching the entirety of the ledge I was standing on, looking for an easy way down, but there were no obvious ways to descend to the area below. The slope was steep pretty much everywhere, and it wasn’t until I veered off the ledge and climbed a low hill that ran behind the fortress that I finally found a spot where sliding down into the Wastelands without hurting myself seemed possible. Getting back up, if I needed to, would be a whole different story. Much like the way in from Highcastle, the steep grade looked near impossible to climb with just hands and feet, but I’d have to just figure that out later.
I saw no orcs around the area below, so I bent my knees and tried to steadily ease my way down. Almost immediately, however, the gravel of the slope loosened, and my steady descent turned into a very fast and unsafe slide.
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” I huffed with my new orcish voice as I burned my hands against the rough rock, trying to slow my slide down and maintain some sort of balance. My ass thumped against the slope, and when I was near the bottom, one of my knees locked, causing me to fly forward and land hard on my palms.
I breathed heavily, and when I inspected my hands, they were scratched and blistered. It only knocked a few percentage points off my health, but it was a terrible way to start.
I rubbed my thick, green hands together and stood up, checking to make sure no one had seen my fall. I was right behind the Fortress—an unlit area that seemed untraveled and unguarded, so there
didn’t seem to be much to worry about.
I rolled my shoulders, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath before I started marching forward and out from the dark passage. My heart was racing, and it was taking all my willpower to remain calm.
There was a large tent right in front of me when I walked from out behind the fortress, and a few orcs were standing in front of it talking. One of them noticed me immediately and did a double take before abandoning his conversation and walking straight up to me. He was much bigger than the low-level orcs I had fought in my first days in Eden’s Gate and a little bigger than the orcs that I fought a day ago in the Freelands.
“What were you doing back there?!” he asked angrily as he stepped uncomfortably close, bumping his uncovered chest into me and invading my personal space. Thick saliva sprayed my face, causing me to wince and turn away a bit.
“I… I…” I struggled for an explanation. I wasn’t expecting to be questioned so soon. “I thought I heard something back there.”
“What?” the orc looked over my shoulder. “What did you hear?”
“I don’t know.”
The orcs eyes narrowed, and he stared at me for several seconds before he stuck his hand behind my shoulder and shoved me hard. “You damn grunt. Alert someone higher than you if you see or hear something suspicious in this area. Don’t try to use your tiny little brain.”
I swallowed hard, but I knew I had to hide how intimidated I was. Orcs weren’t the type to back down from each other so easily. I straightened my shoulders, showed my fangs, and growled a bit.
“Do we have a problem?” the orc asked angrily, reaching for an oversized, crooked sword, hanging from his waist.
I growled again before turning sharply and walking away.
Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit! I thought as I marched to nowhere in particular.
The disguise kit seemed to be working to fool the orcs, but another slipup or two, and they would definitely catch on.
I marched away from the tent and rounded it, not having any idea where to go. Around the corner of the mountainous area behind the Fortress, I found what appeared to be a small town. It was a bit barren and sad-looking, mostly just shoddy canvas tents, guard towers, a well, and a few vendors standing in front of stands. The structures were all made of wood, leather, and bone, and there were none of the more civilized stone buildings I had seen in towns like Barbaros or Thorpes.
I held in my urge to cough as I walked down the dry, unpaved paths of the town. Dust from passersby and my own footsteps kicked up into the air forming dust clouds, and most of the vendors were selling raw, unsanitary-looking meat. Flies attacked the skinless animal corpses hanging from their stalls, and the smell of rot hung in the air.
I saw most of the typical shops you’d find in any city, but rather than having signs hanging in front of a building’s doorway like I had seen in most humanoid establishments, rudimentary signs had been carved into rough wood and attached to thin sticks that were jammed into the ground. The weapons vendor had a sign that simply said, ‘BUY AXE’, for example.
A small fenced-in area housing two dirty goblins was near one food vendor, and I noticed one dead goblin lying in a pool of blood beside someone’s tent. Flies were swarming over it, and no one seemed to care except a nearby dirty dog that was barking and jerking wildly against its chain in an effort to reach the corpse.
A man in front of a tent labeled as an armor shop was cutting skin from a carcass and laying it out to tan, and right beside that tent was another orc holding a sitting orc’s hair tightly with one hand while roughly trimming it with a sharp dagger.
I noticed my miscalculation as I walked by everyone, unsure of what to do. I could’ve bought some meat or purchased a service and used the interaction as an opportunity to friendly-up a vendor, leading into questions about the baby’s father. Since I hadn’t brought any gold with me, I was going to have to enter any and every encounter cold.
I walked and walked, waiting for the right opportunity to strike, until I finally saw a female orc emerge from a tent with a bulging belly and grotesquely yellowed and protruding belly button. She was obviously pregnant but didn’t waddle or look burdened at all. She marched confidently like any orc, her shoulders forward and a menacing look on her face, but maybe because she was pregnant, she intimidated me less than the others.
“Ex—” I almost said, ‘excuse me’, but quickly realized an orc wouldn’t be so polite. “Hey, orc!” I grunted.
The pregnant orc stopped and stared at me angrily. “What?”
“Rithnar? Do you know of him?” I asked.
The orc snarled, turned away from me and marched on.
“Get back here!” I yelled again, but she totally ignored me. I growled as she left, trying to stay in character, but it didn’t seem to help in any way.
I continued walking around until I noticed a massive wooden structure at the edge of town, built right up against the side of the mountain. It was square, held down by metal rods, and attached to it were thick, long wooden beams that ended in a large, squarish spoon-shaped apparatus. Ropes wrapped all around the spoon and were tied to the ground, holding it in place. Orcs were carrying wood towards it, and several orcs were hammering it at various points. A towering stone boulder, at least forty feet high, was sitting nearby. A long rope was tied around its center with the end of the rope lying aimlessly on the ground.
As I was taking in the scene, an orc slammed his shoulder into me as he was walking by, almost knocking me off balance.
He stopped and snarled at me. “Watch where you’re going, grunt!”
“You watch it!” I roared, feeling a little more confident in my orc skin.
The orc stepped close to me and grabbed my smock-like garb. He pulled me close to his face, and when he spoke, his breath smelled like rotten fish. “Watch your mouth or I’ll have your head.”
I growled again and showed my fangs.
He stared at me for several seconds before flinging me to the side as he let go. “We don’t have time for this while we’re at war. Don’t you have work to do? Get a move on and watch yourself.”
As he started to walk away, I grunted, “Wait.”
The orc reached for the mace draped at his side and frowned as he turned back to me. “If that’s what you want, fine!”
“I’m not looking for a fight,” I said in a faux-irritated voice. “I’m looking for an orc named Rithnar.”
The orc creased his brow and clenched his teeth. “What do you want with him?”
“A chat,” I said. “Do you know where he is?”
“I don’t keep tabs on other orcs,” he said.
“How can I find him?” I asked, changing my line of questioning.
He snarled and pointed behind me. “Ask around in the grog-post, stupid grunt!”
I growled more, and the orc took a step closer to me, retracting his lips to show more of his threatening fangs.
Sensing a fight about to occur, I said, “For Ergoth!” and held my fist out in front of me.
The orc’s eyes narrowed in confusion before his demeanor began to soften. He sniffed the air and snarled once before saying, “For Ergoth,” and turned to walk away.
I let out a deep sigh of relief once I was alone.
I turned toward where the orc had pointed and kept walking. I had no idea what the grog-post was but looked to the crude signs of each structure as I passed, hoping I would see something with that designation. I could conclude that it had something to do with alcohol judging by its name, and that thought was confirmed when I reached a large wooden building with a leather flap for a door. The sign right outside the entrance simply had a scribbly picture of a mug carved into it, and bellowing from inside was the sound of a deep, thumping drumbeat.
When I stepped past the leather curtain, I found myself in the orc equivalent of a tavern. Uneven wooden tables were surrounded by tree stumps that served as chairs, and orcs were sitting on almost every stump. Some of them were playi
ng cards, some enjoying nasty, slop-like food, and others smacking their hands against their thighs as they watched two orcs at the far end of the room, slamming their palms against wide tribal drums. Almost everyone seemed to have a dented metal mug sitting in front of them.
A lopsided, shoddy bar had been set up near the center of the room, manned by an orc wearing an apron, and behind him were several large barrels. Hanging from the ceiling over the bar was a thick, skinned and decapitated carcass that was roughly the shape of a cow.
Everyone looked engaged, and I had no idea what to do. Not having any money made my presence in the grog-post feel awkward. I walked with a phony confidence through the room, making purposeful eye contact with everyone as I passed, before finally settling at the only empty stump in the darkest corner of the room.
As I leaned back and scoped things out, I wondered if I was even allowed to be there as a non-paying customer. No one seemed to address me immediately, but a couple orcs looked my way suspiciously and snarled. I leaned back as far as I could, watching, observing, and trying to form a plan of action.
Everyone was caught up in what they were doing, and based on my experience of the orcs outside the grog-post, I couldn’t imagine they’d be happy for me to approach them randomly and interrupt their fun. I tried to think of a good lie I could use to work some information out of them, but I was drawing blanks.
I considered trying to steal something to get some cash. That wasn’t my usual style, but with everyone distracted, it seemed like it might work even without any stealing skills. I could sell the stolen goods for enough to buy a drink and strike up a conversation with the bartender. It was a terrible idea, but I was on a short timeline, and I needed to figure out something fast.
I scoped out a few bottles of wine sitting behind the bar but couldn’t figure out how I could snag one without being caught. I then plotted a plan to pass by a nearby orc who was slurping down food and paying no attention to anything behind him. Draped loosely at his side was a dagger, and if no one noticed me, I could easily unhook it and slip away.