In this way the ordinary noise of an evening inn returned, when before all had been silent, except for the words of the storyteller and the scratch of the Recorder’s quill on parchment. A myriad of small conversations began, chairs were scraped across the floor, mugs were clinked as they were returned to the bar.
The Landlord, whose customers now knew to be the infamous ogre Og-Grim-Dog, poured drinks and took money.
The Recorder also remained busy. He sprinkled sand onto his parchment to dry out the ink, then sprinkled pounce onto a fresh piece to prepare it for the resumption. Some of the regulars anxiously peered over his shoulder at the writing, wondering how he did. For no-one had forgotten the ogre’s threat to kill everyone inside the Testicles should the Recorder fail in his task. Those who took a peep were neither relieved nor worried by what they saw, since it hadn’t been made at all clear what would constitute failure and what success. The regulars knew that words had been spoken and words had been written down. Beyond that, they were none the wiser.
Eventually, the inn settled. Uninstigated, a hush descended on the Flayed Testicles, that let the Landlord know it was time to resume.
Three pairs of ogre eyes scanned the room, as if looking for something.
‘Now, where were we?’ asked the third head.
The Recorder scanned his notes. ‘You had just arrived at the village of Urlay and discovered that it had been attacked by an orc raiding party. I presume this has some significance to the story.’
The ogre frowned at him. ‘Of course it does. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have mentioned it, would we?’
‘Oh, that’s good. I was just a little concerned that the story might be drifting off into irrelevance. After all, let’s see.’ The Recorder flicked through his notes. ‘Yes, here. You said that your party had signed up to visit six dungeons, and so far you have only told us about two. And it already feels like it’s starting to drag a little bit? I don’t know,’ he said, looking about the inn for support. ‘Maybe that’s just me?’
The ogre scowled at the man. ‘Well, if you had given us a chance to get a word in,’ said the second head, ‘you would have known that we never intended to go into detail on the other four dungeons. Suffice it to say, that our experiences there met the same pattern as we had found in the first two. Starting with the Crimson Palace, none of the others provided such a stiff test as the Deepwood. None were quite so pitiful as Wight’s Hollow, though they resembled the latter more than the former. In each one, the opposition we found was limited, and the numbers of orcs few. The loot we found was, on the whole, disappointing. We rooted out gold coins, some precious gems, the odd stash of weapons and other items that could be sold on. But our fantasies of finding magical swords, lost crowns, ancient wisdom, imprisoned ogre princesses, or whatever other dreams our party had, did not come to pass. So it was that we returned to where we started, the town of Mer Khazer. Alive and well. Better off than when we had left. But a little disappointed, nonetheless.’
THE MYSTERY DEEPENS
They returned to Mer Khazer. The population of the town welcomed them back as heroes. There was music and singing and the stallholders fought to press the finest food into their hands. Og-Grim-Dog loved it. Until Sandon reminded them that they had to pay another visit to the Bureau of Dungeoneering.
All kinds of paperwork now had to be filled in. Since Og-Grim-Dog was carrying most of the loot they had won, the ogre was given the task of dealing with objects, which sounded less complicated than some of the other jobs his friends had. Raya went with him and led him to the appropriate desks.
At Financials, the clerk recorded how much money they had made on their adventure; they also had to decide which items they wanted to keep, and which they would sell on to the Bureau. The clerk at the desk had a long list of objects such as weapons and armour, precious jewels, historic coins and artefacts. In the next column was the prices the Bureau would pay for each. No doubt these would then be sold on to buyers at a profit. Og-Grim-Dog had little sense of money or the cost of things and so let Raya make the decisions. At the end of it, the clerk handed them over several bags of coins—the profits of their dungeon crawl.
‘I also have a note,’ he said, ‘to remind you that Mr Agassi is owed five per cent of your winnings.’
‘We remember,’ said Grim. ‘We’ll take the money to him.’ He didn’t begrudge Mr Agassi the money. They had only gone on their adventure because of his help, and they had never really been in it for the money anyway.
‘Why does the Bureau need to know so much about the money we took?’ Grim asked the elf as they crossed the office to the next desk.
‘Many reasons,’ Raya said. ‘One of them is that it helps them get a picture of the health of each dungeon. If parties report back that they found little or nothing in a dungeon, they might decide to close it down to adventurers for a while. Let it fill up with monsters and treasure again.’
‘But most of them were pretty weak sauce,’ said Dog. ‘Shouldn’t we tell somebody?’
‘Gurin is over at Applications for Dungeons Crawls,’ she said, pointing over to where the dwarf stood in conversation at the desk. ‘They record that kind of anecdotal information. Then cross reference it with Financials and any other evidence they have. They’re pretty thorough. Right, here we are. Magical Items. We should have a separate bag for this, Og-Grim-Dog. Yes, that one.’
At the Magical Items desk, they needed to hand in anything that might contain a magical charge of some kind.
‘It’s for safety reasons as much as anything else,’ said the witch at the desk, when she learned that Og-Grim-Dog was a new member of the Bureau. ‘In the old days we let the adventurers walk off with any old item. Well, we had devils escaping from magical captivity; spectres encased in jewellery or weapons would seize the bodies of their owners. Committed all sorts of vicious atrocities, they did. So now we check everything first. Even if you think there’s no magic in it at all, it’s always better to be safe than sorry.’
Og-Grim-Dog placed the bag into the box provided. It had strange, colourful markings all over it.
‘Covered in anti-magic wards,’ the witch explained when she saw the ogre studying the box. ‘Come and pick your items up tomorrow,’ she said cheerfully.
Once all the administration was done, the team reassembled.
‘Tired faces,’ Sandon commented as he looked at everyone. ‘It hits you when you finally stop.’
‘Yes,’ Assata agreed. ‘I think I’m ready for a sleep in a bed at The Bollocks.’
‘But we’re going to have a drink in the bar, first?’ Raya asked. ‘We have to celebrate.’
With different levels of enthusiasm, everyone agreed to the elf’s request. But the Bureau had one last surprise for them. As they were leaving, a voice called over from Registration.
‘I thought you ought to know.’ It was the same woman who had refused to register Og-Grim-Dog in the first place. She had a triumphant looking expression on her face. ‘The Bureau has amended the membership rules. Here,’ she said, pointing to a passage in a fresh-looking copy of the constitution.
With a sense of foreboding, Grim walked across to the desk, his friends coming with him. The amended passage was easy enough to read. Section four, sub-section two now said: ‘Goblins, orcs, trolls, ogres and other such monsters shall, under no condition, be admitted as members of the Bureau of Dungeoneering.’
The voices of his new friends rose in protest around him, but it was as clear as clear could be. Their adventuring days were over. Grim felt more sad than angry.
‘Please don’t,’ he said to Dog, as his brother unclipped his mace from his belt. ‘Killing the official isn’t going to change anything.’
‘It will make me feel better,’ Dog responded, but he returned his weapon to his belt nonetheless.
There was talk of appeals and legal challenges. Assata said she would organise a protest event. But Grim wasn’t in the mood for all that.
‘Come on,’ he said
to them. ‘Let’s get to the bar. I’d rather celebrate our successes than talk of this anymore.’
‘If that’s what you want,’ said Raya. ‘I’ll get the first round in.’
Grim couldn’t lie about in bed any longer. His brothers were still inebriated from the night before. But he had to do something.
They left their room at The Bollocks. Og remained asleep. Dog woke up, hungover, and muttered a string of abuse at him. But at least he was roused enough to open doors and such, allowing Grim to leave the inn.
There weren’t many places in Mer Khazer to go. After a while, Grim decided to go the house of Mr Agassi, the lawyer who had won their original case against the Bureau of Dungeoneering. He was entitled to a share of their treasure, and Grim thought they might as well take it to him now.
It was early morning and the ghoul was home, still in his dressing gown. Fortunately for the ogre, Mr Agassi was fixing his breakfast.
‘There’s plenty to go around,’ he said, returning to his kitchen, as Grim settled down onto the floor of the front room. The ghoul soon returned with steaming hot mugs of a meaty broth and a mouth-watering selection of hot meat.
‘Fresh off the slab,’ the ghoul announced as he placed the meat on the floor next to them.
The tempting smells woke Og up and Grim’s two brothers got stuck into breakfast, shoving handfuls of meat and fat and gristle into Grim’s mouth for him when their own were too full. When they were finally gorged, it was time to speak.
‘Dog, could you give Mr Agassi his fees?’
The ghoul took the bag of money, giving it a little shake.
‘You did well!’
‘Less than I thought we might get.’
‘Income from dungeon crawling has been in decline for some time now. It looks like you did better than most crews.’
‘The Bureau has banned ogres from membership.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ said the ghoul. ‘For one, there are too many adventurers these days, and not enough monster-filled dungeons. You might say the industry has become a victim of its own success. And that’s not really an environment where people will be welcoming to newcomers. Secondly, of course, you’re fighting against millennia of discrimination and hatred from humans. Not an easy thing to overcome. You might want to think yourselves lucky you were ever admitted in the first place. Where you go from here, it’s hard for me to advise. I’ve made a place for myself in human society by making my services valuable enough for clients to ignore what I am. When it comes to disputes of law, all people really want to do is win. They hire the best. Maybe you could do something similar.’
‘Who says we even want to make it in human society?’ Og demanded. ‘Especially if they treat us like this. We were perfectly happy back in our cavern, weren’t we?’
‘For once, I agree with Og,’ said Dog. ‘Why does everyone want to act like humans anyway? It’s time to get back home, I say.’
‘If you both remember,’ Grim said, ‘we came here to find out why the humans keep attacking the dungeons, even when there’s little left to take. In my opinion, we have and we haven’t. We know that adventuring is fun and popular, even when there’s not so many monsters and treasure as there used to be. But the people are still scared of monsters, especially orcs. The Bureau keeps the dungeons open even when they’re beaten into the ground. And villages like Urlay are still getting raided by orcs, even though we haven’t found a single orc band strong enough to do it. There’s still something yet to solve.’
‘Who gives a crap?’ Dog demanded. ‘We’re an ogre. We’re not meant to solve mysteries. We’re not meant to hang out with wizards and elves and dwarves. We’re meant to eat them. This has to stop, Grim.’
‘So what? We shrug our shoulders and go back to our cavern?’ Grim demanded. ‘Wait until all the orcs and goblins are killed? All the trolls are dead? And then a party of heroes comes to our home and kills us? How stupid is that?’
‘Let them try and kill us,’ Dog said. ‘I’ll crush their heads in.’
Grim sighed. Dog didn’t want to see it. There was no point in arguing.
‘You’ll have to work it out for yourselves,’ said Mr Agassi, with some sympathy.
‘Let’s at least go back to the Bureau and pick up that bag from Magical Items,’ said Grim.
‘Alright, Grim,’ said Og. ‘It’s your legs that are doing the walking. Thanks for breakfast, Mr Agassi.’
Mr Agassi waved them off as they left his little terraced street.
Grim returned to the Bureau building, even though it had never been his favourite place. There was someone else on duty at the Magical Items desk, but they agreed to hand back the items once they verified Og-Grim-Dog’s identity.
First, the bag was returned, then the clerk reappeared with a tray full of the items they had deposited yesterday. There was a note with it. ‘Nothing dangerous,’ the clerk said, reading from it. ‘There is a Ring of Curse-Breaking. We’ve put it in an envelope for you. You’ll probably want to pass that on to your wizard. Otherwise, everything else is magic-free.’
‘Of course,’ said Grim. Og and Dog began bundling the items back into the bag.
‘Hey, Og,’ said Dog. ‘What is that sword Grim found in the village doing here? You didn’t think that was magical, did you?’
Dog took the weapon in his hand. It had the distinctive broad-headed blade loved by orcs, with the delicately crafted red hilt.
‘Eh? I didn’t put it in there.’ Og patted at his belt, then withdrew the sword. ‘See? That’s a different one.’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Grim. A strange thought was struggling to the surface. ‘They’re identical. Are you sure this sword was in the bag?’ he asked the clerk.
‘Positive. You’re the only group who made a deposit yesterday.’
‘So whose is it?’ Grim asked.
‘Well,’ said Og, ‘presumably someone found it in one of the dungeons.’
‘I think I would have noticed if someone found the exact same weapon in one of the dungeons,’ said Grim. ‘And I think they would have done too, since we walked into The Crushed Grapes brandishing it for all to see. There’s something very odd about this.’
Grim’s brothers eyed the two identical weapons.
‘I feel like you’re right,’ Og admitted eventually. ‘But what does it mean?’
‘What if,’ said Grim, his words running at the same pace as his thoughts, ‘orcs never attacked that village in Urlay? What if someone else did? And what if the person or persons behind that attack was someone from our party?’
‘You mean a treacherous scumbag pretending to be a friend?’ asked Dog, anger plain in his voice. ‘A liar and a crook, deceiving us, making everyone believe it was orcs doing the killings, when it was them? I say we find out who that someone is.’
‘My thoughts exactly,’ said Grim. ‘But we have to play this clever, because that’s how this individual has played it. No giving away our suspicions, or that we’ve found a second sword. If we act careful, we might uncover the criminal.’
‘Maybe they think because we’re an ogre, we’ll be too stupid to work it out,’ said Dog. ‘But there’s three heads working on this now.’
THE BARBARIAN
You could say it was chance that Assata was the first member of the party that Og-Grim-Dog investigated—certainly, no plan had been formulated. Grim was walking back to The Bruised Bollocks when they saw the barbarian leaving.
‘Follow her, Grim,’ Og said, sounding excited.
Assata crossed the road and carried on towards a part of town that the ogre had never been to.
‘I wonder where she’s going,’ said Dog, his tone implying that the barbarian was up to no good. Grim was a little concerned that his brothers were now too wrapped up with finding evidence of wrongdoing.
‘Careful, Grim,’ Dog added. ‘Don’t get too close.’
Grim slowed down, letting Assata get further ahead of them, but keeping her within sight.
�
�Now,’ said Og. ‘What do we have on the barbarian?’
‘She doesn’t drink,’ said Dog. ‘That’s suspicious in itself. It gives her more time to further her nefarious plans while the rest of us are sleeping off our fug.’
Alright. Now Grim was sure they were taking it too far.
‘Good,’ said Og. ‘What else?’
‘Assata was the one who recruited us in the first place, if you recall?’ said Dog.
‘What does that prove?’ demanded Grim. ‘Apart from the fact that she didn’t treat us with prejudice, like most people do.’
‘Fair enough, Grim,’ Dog acknowledged. ‘It doesn’t prove anything. Necessarily.’
Grim ignored that, concentrating on his quarry. Assata was leading them away from the town centre with its shops and inns. They were now in a residential area, the human houses squashed together, built from flimsy material.
Then, she disappeared into one of the houses.
‘Did you see that, Grim?’
‘Yes,’ he said, picking up the pace, while keeping the house fixed in his sights. He approached the building, unsure what to do next. Three-headed ogres had their limitations when it came to looking inconspicuous.
‘There,’ said Og, pointing to an alley on the left. ‘I bet that goes behind the house.’
Grim didn’t hesitate in taking the alley, sensing eyes observing them. As Og had suggested, the alley branched out in different directions, and one of them took them behind the house that Assata had entered.
‘Is that it?’ Dog asked, pointing at the dilapidated wooden exterior.
‘I think so,’ said Grim. It was hard to tell for sure, since the houses all looked the same. ‘What now?’
‘Wait?’ Og offered.
Grim sighed. Their total lack of a plan felt very apparent.
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