I prefer fighting orcs over talking to them. The worst thing that happens when you fight an orc is that they kill you. They may torture you. But there's an end to the madness. There's a final point where it finishes, and you feel no more. You suffer no more.
But if you talk to an orc, they will twist your mind with their words. They will strike at your heart using psychology, philosophy, rhetoric, anything to bend your will and assert their dominance over you. We stopped interrogating orcs for that reason; half the interrogators and torturers we used on the orcs killed themselves within a span of two months.
You see, they understand us. They can guess how we feel. But we don't think like they do. For good reason. We're a natural species. We were alive before the Integration, before the System ca. We lived by evolutionary rules. Theoretically, we are tribal creatures. We value things and develop deeper connections.
The orcs are nothing more than weapons given life, and they'll use every aspect of yourself against you. There's always sothing you want. There is always sothing you wish to achieve. And if you're desperate, and the orc knows what you're desperate about, it will use that. It will use that to chain you.
But that doesn't an they're unbeatable. No. I've shad an orc before. I mocked their failure to breach one of our walls, and he apologized to . He was genuine. It wasn't mockery. He said he was sorry. He said that he shad himself by not being good enough, by not reaching his desired endpoint of triumph.
And that's the thing. If there is any way to overco an orc ntally, philosophically, rhetorically, it's by focusing on where they failed. Not the ideas where they failed. Not how they conceptually failed. How they literally failed. They are very materialistic creatures. Prideful to the extre. And they value their achievents and experience above all else.
If you have to talk to one, use that. But for the love of all the gods, don't talk to an orc. Not if you can help it.
They’ll make you care about them sohow. And then they’ll betray you with a grin on their face.
-Hero-Ranger Morgan Munny
133 (I)
Army
Whisper blasted through the air, tumbling several tis with an imprint of Shiv's knuckles on his face. Before he even touched the ground, the Deathless slamd into him, pinning him against the far battlents beneath the obsidian tower. The stone walls shook, fissures spreading along them. Shiv gripped Whisper by his neck, lifting the orc high.
Whisper chuckled as he spat blood and broken teeth all over Shiv's chest. The Deathless was calm. He was extrely calm. His anger had all been spent. But still, he wasn't sure if he was going to kill the orc or not. Calmness was one thing, hatred was another. Part of him scread for him to reach into the orc’s spirit and mutilate him beyond asure.
Far above, the other orcs cheered him on. A mithril ingot switched hands as Band lost a bet to Mortar. "I told you!" Mortar bellowed. "I told you the Deathless would see through it. He's uneducated, but that doesn't an he's a fool."
As the other orcs grinned down at him, Shiv clenched his teeth.
"Now to see the interesting part," Tequila said, "is he gonna rip Whisper in half? Is he gonna co for us right after?"
In the background, Shiv could hear the Challenger's laughter turn to an amused sigh. "There is no point to this, Deathless. It was going to happen sooner or later. I rely accelerated the process, and perhaps saved your Blackedge in the process. You all deliberated too long, and as amusing as your little cooking challenge was, you really do need to deal with your actual problems soon."
Adam hovered in the air. He had three Veilpiercers drawn, each of them aid at one of the other orcs. Uva drifted behind him, her mana strands rearing back as if a few thousand hair-thin serpents prepared to strike.
"You could finish off," Whisper said. He was entirely too calm about this. "I think it might make you feel better—"
Shiv jabbed him in the throat with the bottom end of the Skysplitter. The orc choked, but his expression didn't change.
"Don't talk to ," Shiv said. He pointed his blade high at the orcs as he glared. "None of you talk to . Not until I get to you. Not a word.”
He t Band's eye, and the musical orc just smirked at him. That smirk beca a grimace as Shiv blasted upwards, seizing Band by the throat. Whisper was left behind as Shiv’s ire fell on the true culprit. They rose high in the air, the orc squinted at the Deathless, shrugging in his grip and offering a near-comical gesture. And everything Shiv felt about what they experienced from cooking together, about how perhaps the orcs weren't just cruel monsters, was drowned in a new wave of cold loathing.
"Umbrals died," Shiv growled. He looked back at the first layer of battlents. Most of them were half-lted. Only a single section of the wall still stood. He couldn't see any bodies remaining atop the parapets. But he'd seen the defenders who gave their lives to hold the gate. "Weaveresses died. People died."
Band's lips curled upward as he t Shiv's eyes. "People die," the orc mused. "We die, you die. It's just what happens." With every word spoken, Band swallowed, biting back pain. "Difference is…" Shiv's arms trembled as he held himself back from imdiate murder. "You co back. We co back. They sleep. They go away. For good. And you. Killed too. So many. Why mad? Three million lives. Fingerlings. As conscious as any spiderling. Jealous of you. Insul. Powerful. Brutal. Their families. Scream your na at night. Screams echo across history.”
Shiv wanted to crush the orc's skull. He wanted to rip his own body open and pour his wounds into Band. He wanted to torture the orc over and over again, bring him closer and closer to the brink until he finally got an apology.
But his massively strengthened Psychology Skill told him what would actually happen. These were orcs. He could sha them based on them failing to dominate him, or failing to live up to their potential. They were perforrs, builders, makers, Pathbearers of a savage extre.
But it was as the Challenger had said before: philosophy was just a weapon for them. Morality was sothing they could utilize and discard at a whim. Torturing the orc likely wouldn't even inflict any ntal trauma, unless he directly targeted the orc's mind.
Shiv and the orc swayed high in the air. Below, the Umbrals turned on the remaining orcs. Two teams of sisters held out their polearms. Ikki stood among them, her face coated under a layer of dried blood. Nearby, Can Hu regarded the orcs as well, and Valor hovered behind it, a Necromantic blade crackling with murderous intent.
Yet despite all this, the three orcs not within Shiv's grasp continued chatting among each other. Mortar and Tequila leaned over the parapets as if nothing was wrong, as if they were just taking in the sights. They ignored Adam and the Veilpiercers he had pointed at them. They ignored Uva and the threat she posed to their minds. And most of all, Band still taunted Shiv with his condescending gaze.
"You know, if I reach into your soul, I can tear you up for good," Shiv hissed. He tapped a strand of Vitamancy against the orc's jaw and slowly drilled it through Band's skin. It went deeper than the flesh, splashing into the inner recesses of Band's being, and the orc let out a slight grunt of discomfort. "I could finish you, or I could just rip you up, leave you crippled between every life. A mangled, broken thing that screams and screams when he respawns, but never gets to be a true Pathbearer again. Just a ruined lump of felling at.”
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
Band looked at him once more and shrugged. "If that is the price. For. Excitent. And experiences." The orc was entirely honest. An eternal wound ant nothing to him. An eternal wound was easily accepted if he got sothing of a novel experience out of it.
And another one of Shiv's assumptions about the orcs broke apart. They weren't fearless because they were immortal. No, they were fearless because their psychology simply didn't allow them to be terrified in the sa way a human or Umbral might. It was by design, not simply a side effect of their taphysical nature.
"Rember," Band continued, his voice strained. "Rember war. Need good warriors. Many warriors. Killed many. Only needed to kill fifty thousand." And Band smiled. It was a vicious sneer of a smile, and the orc licked at his bloodied lips. "But after that fifty thousand, so many others. Rember the rules of the ritual. Go. Get your reward. Accept your army. Insul.”
"Rember the rules of the ritual," the Challenger carried on where Band finished.
Shiv turned his head backward, and he stared at the dinsional gateway that once led to Vulketh. It was roiling, pulsating with building waves of energy. Blackened tides splashed outward, each one crashing over another. On the gateway was a deep bowl, surrounded by cracked glass across the ground.
Countless Vultegs lay in the depression, their bodies disfigured beyond description. So of them had expired. So of them remained on their knees, whimpering for rcy. And so were broken of mind and spirit, wandering madly. Just the sight left Shiv briefly stunned. This was only a small group hard by his soul-fire detonation.
So what the hells does Vulketh look like right now? Shiv wondered.
But then new shapes joined the Vultegs. Larger shapes that reached up through the gateway, pulling themselves over the black lip of Dinsionality. A shaking mbrane of surface pressure broke free from the bodies of newly arriving orcs. They arose in an orderly fashion, one climbing up after another.
As a group of ten orcs slipped out from the gate, they ford a periter and held their blades high in unison. They all bore what seed to be a butcher's cleaver, and their bodies were adorned with bloodied aprons. Along each of their hips was a chain of heads: elven, Umbral, Vulteg, automaton, and more.
"We co to serve you, Insul!" one of the orcs roared. "We co to give ourselves to your service! We depart from Lone Star for the coming sumr! And we give praise to your slaughter! We give praise to your feats of destruction! We give praise!"
And the other orcs cheered with him.
Shiv stared in utter disbelief, but that feeling slowly faded as he descended from the sky. He dropped Band back on the parapet, and the orc readjusted his chainmail suitcoat. He cracked his neck and gave Shiv a slow smile.
“No, you don’t get to do that,” Shiv hissed through clenched teeth. “We’re not done. This isn’t over. You get a few monts. A few monts before I figure out what to do with you. But your life is mine.”
"Not over?" Band asked, flicking a tongue across his lips.
Shiv chuckled humorlessly. "Before any of this is done, Band, I'm going to hear you scream and scream for real. I will find a way to hurt you for good."
"But not yet," Band replied. “Not right now. Go. Go. Greet the army. Your army. Your gift. Your rite.”
Shiv simply glared at the orc, and then he turned his hateful gaze on the others. "All of you, co with . You're not staying here, not anymore." He looked back at Band. "I want to know what you did and how you did it—Actually, no. Uva!” Shiv called out. The Psychomancer t his gaze readily. Behind her eyes, he read a hint of cold fury.
"This one." Shiv pointed at Band. "He opened the breach. Reach into his mind, but don't break him. Find out everything he knows—if he did anything else to the gateways. Find out if he has any other surprises for us."
"And any more mana bombs?" Adam added. "That's what he used to throw the Surface District into chaos. That, and a series of specially summoned dinsionals. They butchered slaves, rcenaries—more. That godsdamned mad bastard…”
Band held his arms open as Uva's strands pierced into him. His smile faded, and his eyes rolled back. He promptly collapsed as several of her Psychomancy threads pulled upward violently. She wasn't going to do this gently, and she didn't care if she broke him. Frankly, Shiv didn't truly care either.
"The rest of you," he said, calling out to the orcs, "with ."
"Oh, and where are we going now, Insul?" Tequila asked. He barely gave his friend a second glance as Uva began prying open Band's mind.
"We're going to the Tutorial," Shiv declared aloud. "All that death was to get an army, right? Fine. I’ll bite. I’ll see this army. But I want to see the fucking Challenger too. I want to see him tell why he was so determined to be a piece of shit. I would have felling done the ritual eventually anyway.”
“Eventually,” Whisper said, sighing. “Eventually is too far away, Deathless. We were helping you. You didn’t have the ti.”
“I have as much ti as I decide I have!” Shiv growled. “It's not your place to decide for .”
“Of course, Insul. I apologize.” Whisper bowed, and he wiped blood from his face using his robes.
Shiv wanted to crush the orc’s skull. But murdering the orcs pointlessly would be a waste. Too much of a waste with the war looming over the horizon. “Adam, you're with too. Ti for us to have our first formal conversation with the Challenger. And for us to survey our forces." Shiv frowned. "Well. Survey the orcs. Can’t exactly call them our forces if they’re going to do shit like this.”
"But we are yours to command, Insul," Mortar said with a chuckle. "Don't you trust us?"
The orcs were determined to taunt him, to see how far they could push him. Shiv wanted to kill at least one of them permanently to set terms, but a pounding coldness inside his head commanded him to think straight, to be pragmatic. Besides, if he did butcher them, they would have won over him in so—
MOTHERFUCKERS! Shiv raged internally. They were using their godsdamned Psychology Skill on him. They knew he hated bending as much as they enjoyed domination. Shit. Adam was right. I am almost an inverted orc in so ways.
Once again, he considered just killing one of them. And once again, he held off. They were going to be facing Sullain at Blackedge soon. The Inquisition had an expeditionary force on the way. The orcs were using him, and so he was going to use them in return, because they were going to spend their lives the proper way.
"And if I do want to kill one of them permanently," Shiv thought to himself, "I'll do it later, when we're in control. The last thing I need is the Challenger deciding to renege on this little ritual and flood the gate with his orcs. Shit. We basically just replaced Lord Scorn with sothing worse."
“Far worse,” the Challenger crooned. “And far better as well.”
Mortar and Tequila jumped down from the top of the battlent. Shiv grabbed Band by the back of his neck and carried him away while Uva continued her Psychomantic delving. He wasn’t leaving her or the orc here. They would do this in the Tutorial—and not risk the remaining survivors in the gate anymore.
"Null Mont!" Shiv roared. He looked around, trying to find where the Exalted Mother was. "Null Mont!"
Lightning flashed above. An arcing bolt of electricity twisted past Shiv and slamd a Weaveress into shape atop the battlents. Null Mont materialized at the parapets, staring at the Deathless. Her posture was one of excess tension. Her many limbs were shaking, and the humanoid digits at the end of each limb vibrated even more so.
"Yes, yes! Honored Guest!" She coughed. "I an, Hero Shiv."
"You hurt?" Shiv asked. He looked Null Mont up and down. His Biomancy couldn’t detect any wounds, but so of the tal quills running down her arms were broken, and she clutched at her torso like there was sothing wrong.
"No, no, I was... I took the Leviathan at. I..." Her words ca out as a ssy stamr. She held up the wrapper, and he understood and gave her a nod.
"You're fine then."
"Yes, thank you. Because of you…”
Shiv offered her a brief nod. Null Mont was an idiot, but compared to the orcs, she was downright angelic. She'd even served an active role in combat. Despite being absolutely terrified. I can see her shivering. "Listen, I need you to get everyone together. Construct additional defenses around the gateway. Trap the gateway. Do it in if you have to. Let nothing get in or out. Do you understand? Get the Geomancers now. We're going to go across. If we don't co back in 3 hours, you seal the gate, take whoever you can among the remaining inhabitants, and you leave as soon as you can.”
"In fact," Adam called out, "you should go introduce yourself to more people first. That should allow the mana core to synchronize with you as the next Gate Lord, in case sothing happens to ." Adam grimaced at that statent. He shot a look at the orcs standing around the dinsional gateway, and a tense breath left him. "Are you sure this is a good idea, Shiv?"
Shiv stared at Adam. "I think I’m too tired for good ideas.”
The Gate Lord laughed. “Ah. Well said. Well. Let’s go do sothing potentially stupid together.”
User Comments
0 comments from readers