Chapter 94

“Huh. Well that explains why we haven’t seen many monsters around, the Orcs killed them all.”

Opal was standing with her hands on her hips looking down at the enormous Orc camp at the bottom of the valley. Rows and rows of tents and ramshackle constructions and warsmithies and stalls and sties and stables and canopies and carts and latrines and flattened ground where Orcs sparred and brawled in the open cheered on by eager Orcish crowds.

Rain could scent the camp from up on the rise thanks to the breeze and it caused him to wrinkle the bridge of his nose in disgust. Orcs on the move apparently didn’t go in for hygiene ... or baths. It gave the lower leveler slums a run for its money in stench.

“We should leave. It’s a bad idea for monsters like us to be anywhere near that camp, we’re too much of a target.”

“I ... want to go in.”

He blinked and turned to find Lyra. She was looking at the red-headed Orc who was desperately trying to draw in what little air he could to remain conscious as Rain held him up in one paw.

“Why?”

“Because first of all you’re obviously still hungry and I think I can see some cattle down there. We need that cattle because what if there is nothing to eat when we go further? What if the Orcs have stripped the woods bare for miles around? I don’t particularly want to be stuck in the middle of nowhere with a hungry you Rain, er, no offense.”

Rain had to admit that was true, he had been getting increasingly concerned with just how starved he was. He needed food, and a lot of it, the sooner the better.

“And second because, well, we’re bloody lost! I’m a city sheep! I don’t know my way around backwoods and endless forests!” she jabbed a finger at Rain “And you! You rarely if ever left Lynthia, you know literally one town and one dungeon, that’s it!” The accusing finger swung to the side pointing at an annoyed looking Opal “And somehow you’re even worse! You hadn’t even seen the sky until recently!”

“Hey screw you! I don’t need to see some dumb sky to scout!”

“So what direction is Florens in huh?”

“...”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. We don’t know where we’re going, so we need ... we need a map. I think I can probably purchase that down in that camp. Maybe. So- So I’m going down there!”

Rain eyed the sheep girl. Five foot six. Cute. Fluffy. Weaponless. Then he turned and looked down at the camp. Hordes of huge seven foot Orcs. Muscular. Violent. Currently happily beating the shit out of each other in a massive brawl.

“No.”

“I’ve been in Orc camps before you know. They are still levelers despite their incompetent public image department. They will welcome me fine and they won’t even challenge me to a casual brawl first because I’m not very intimidating. It’s when you look like you can put up a fight that you really need to look out around Orcs.”

“ ... I will come too, as Fitz.”

“And get immediately attacked on sight? Have you seen yourself? It’s not like I can make you invisible without being invisible myself either, and Opal can hardly go in on her own as she isn’t a leveler.”

Rain set his lips in a line. She was ... annoyingly right. If she could do as she said it would be quite good, maybe even very good, they were in need of both a map and food.

He clenched his paw and the Orc made a strangled cry of alarm as he was squeezed. But then he let his shoulders slump and sighed.

“Alright, it makes some amount of sense, -”

“Of course!”

“-but I’m not letting you go down there with nothing.”

“Yeah she’ll have me with her,” said Opal.

Rain’s eye twitched. “Not what I meant.”

He dropped the red headed Orc and he went sprawling on the grass on all fours, drawing in great raggedy breaths, his chest rising and falling like a pair of blacksmith’s bellows, drool dangling from his lips.

The Orc was on the younger side, about six and a half foot in height, similar to the other orcs that had attacked him in that way, his peers Rain supposed. Unusual for an Orc he had red hair, beaded and shorn and cut with crude runes. His canines which protruded up from his lip were tipped with crafted copper. Having seen just how much the species enjoyed brawling it seemed likely they were capped that way for fighting reasons.

He looked over the Orc’s armour. Hardened leather from a mix of sources, some of it even looked suspiciously like Kobold scales. More important than the material however was the crude Orcish runes carved and marked along its surface, clearly some kind of enchantment to make it stronger, which was fortunate for the Orc as the shadowy wolf teeth wouldn’t have had much problem piercing the leather otherwise.

After some time the Orc flopped over onto his back, still breathing hard, and looked up at Rain. There was genuine fear in his eyes which in Rain’s experience with Orc’s, mostly the anvil wielding maniac Ola, was unusual. The Orc swallowed.

“D-don’t kill me. I’m not- I didn’t do anything to you, I never attacked you like the others, it wouldn’t be f-fair.”

“You’re a leveler, you expect me to believe that you didn’t intend to kill me? A monster? No. The only reason you didn’t try to kill me is because you saw your friends get cut down first.”

The Orc paled.

Rain held up a paw and darkness misted from his fur, fringing chromatic. A small cloud formed, condensing and creating a starscape-eyed shadow rat sitting in his palm. The rat blinked and sniffed at the air curiously, its whiskers twitching.

“You know what this stuff does to a living person?” gravelled Rain.

“I s-saw ... but I wish I hadn’t...” The Orc began to slowly crawl away on his elbows, stealthily trying to put some distance between himself and Rain. Rain didn’t even glance down at him, half a dozen pairs of wolf teeth poured from his mane and spilled down on to the grass, circling the Orc and preventing him from going further.

Rain eyed the rat in his paw. Rats were a constant presence in his previous life, happy to make their home amongst the low leveler slums, they were extraordinary survivors and could eat anything ... which was a problem as it meant they weren’t particularly pure predators.