by Edward Brody
“It’s an orc?!” Arryl instinctively reached for his sword hilt. He started strafing around me, trying to get a better look at what was in my hands. “You’re carrying an orc child?!”
I nodded lightly. “Yeah…”
Arryl whipped out his blade and held it out to his side. “Kill it!”
I pulled the crying baby closer to me and shook my head. “No. We’re not killing it. Calm the fuck down.”
“Take care!” Trynzen cried. “Not kill!”
Arryl turned to the other High Elf guard nearby, and they both had rage etched across their faces. “What are you talking about?! The Scourge is the enemy! We kill any and all orcs that enter our territory—no exceptions. This is elven territory!”
“It’s just a baby,” I said. “It’s not really Scourge yet.”
“Have you lost your mind?!” Arryl roared. “Or are you aligned with the Scourge now?” He lifted his sword and pointed the tip towards me.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m not aligned with the Scourge. We’re just going to keep the child until I can return it to them.”
“Return it?” Arryl’s eyes were wide and his mouth agape. “Return an orc to the Scourge?! What in Eden’s Gate has gotten into you?!”
“It’s just a quest,” I explained. “It has no effect on any of you.”
Arryl made a low growling sound and wrinkled his nose. “The Queen summoned us here to live in danger with dark elves, but now you’re taking things too far. You may be the leader of this village, but bringing an orc here and helping the Scourge in any way is totally unacceptable.”
“I’m not really helping them,” I began. “It’s just— “
“You!” Arryl snorted as he whipped his head towards his companion, interrupting me. “Ride to Mist Vale at once and inform the Queen of this treachery.”
The other High Elf nodded and scurried away.
Arryl slowly turned his head back to me. “We may be under your service now but perhaps not for long, Ambassador.” His eyes shifted toward the crying child. “I’ll give you one more chance to kill it…now.”
I took a deep breath, rolled my eyes, and shook my head. “Just get your men prepared… Scourge are heading this way and may enter the forest.” I looked to Sung. “Let’s go wake the others.”
Chapter Twenty-One
2/19/0001
“Everyone up!” I yelled as I started banging on the doors and slapping tents. “Everyone up! Scourge incoming!”
I ran towards Aaron’s home and banged especially hard. “Get up, Aaron! Open your door!”
After a bit more knocking, Aaron pushed open his door and rubbed his eyes as he stood in the doorway. He was wearing only his boxers. “Scourge are coming again? Fuckin’ ayyyy….” His eyes followed the sound of the crying baby and looked down at the covered hump in my arms. “What the hell is that?”
I took a step forward and pressed lightly on his chest. “Let’s get inside for now.”
Aaron blinked a couple times and stepped back to allow me in.
I closed the door behind me and uncovered the baby. “I’m taking care of this guy for a bit.”
“Whoa! What the hell?” Aaron rubbed his eyes again and shook his head. “Is that what it looks like?”
“Yeah…”
“Why the hell do you have a baby orc?” He looked down to the baby then back up to me. “Are you on joojak?” He shook his head and blinked. “Am I on joojak?”
“No. I have a quest to return him to the orcs. I can explain later. Just take care of it for now.” I handed the baby over to Aaron, and he reluctantly took it in his arms.
Aaron groaned as he held the crying child. “This is trouble, you know, Gunnar? This won’t go over well with anyone. Orcs are—”
“I know, I know,” I interrupted. “It’s going to be a little bit of a challenge.”
“And how the hell do I shut it up?” he asked.
“Give it a food ration or let it suck the blood out of your finger.”
Aaron tucked his chin in. “Say whaaaaaat?”
I shook my head as I heard some commotion outside of the building. “Just give it some food. It’ll quiet down… probably.”
Aaron sighed and shook his head again. “You and your weird antics…”
“Stay safe in here. I’m going to go fight these orcs.”
“Yeah, yeah…”
I rushed outside, and the whole rest of the guild was gathering in the center of the village near the fire pit. Most of them already had torches lit.
“Scourge?” Jax questioned as he saw me exit Aaron’s home.
“Yeah, a whole horde of them maybe, heading in from the Freelands,” I explained.
“Hey, Trynzen is back!” Jeremy shouted.
I turned to see Sung tying his horse to a tree and Trynzen scurrying around, trying to help, but being more of a nuisance than anything.
“What happened?” Jax asked. “Did you fail your quest?”
“No, I got the gold,” I explained. “But we ran into some complications, so Trynzen is back for a while. I’ll explain later. For now, let’s get ready for the orcs.”
Shal ran up to me. “All of the elves are in position, facing east for a Scourge attack. We’ve left one lookout each on the north, west, and south positions in case they try to circle around or attack from our flanks. I’ve woken all the dark elves sheltered further in the forest, just in case we have a breach.”
“Good,” I said. I waved my hand to the core guild members who had closed in around me. “Let’s position ourselves behind the guards and get ready for a fight.”
“Ready!” Keysia said, holding a staff in one hand and a torch in the other.
Rina stretched her arms out and groaned sleepily. “Ready…”
I held my hand out in front of all of them. “We’ve got this.”
Jeremy placed his hand on top of mine and then Jax, but before we could complete our little guild ritual, I heard an elf yell, “Incoming!”
I pulled my hand away. “Let’s go! Let’s go!”
We all ran towards the sound of the voice, and by the time we reached the alerting elf, our guards were all unleashing arrow after arrow in an eastward direction.
“Fire!” Arryl yelled, throwing down his hand, then immediately grabbing his bow and shooting an arrow of his own.
The approaching orcs and goblins grunted and cried as arrows slammed into them, many of them dropping their torches.
I held my staff up, ready to attack, but the elves were connecting with the orcs from an uncanny distance, far out of range of my magic.
“Can I get some Divine Sight?” Jax asked.
I nodded, raised my hand and cast the spell on him.
Jax grabbed his bow, nocked an arrow and waited for something to come in range.
Arryl let another arrow fly before holding a hand in front of him, and a yellowish-green wave of magic exited his fingertips. The wave of magic seemed to pass through everyone nearby, causing a light-yellow haze to encompass our hands.
An icon of a pointy badge with a leaf pictured inside appeared below my status bars.
Rally of the Forest: While standing in forest regions, you draw energy from the nature around you, granting you increased swiftness. Your ranged attack speed is increased by 20%. Spell duration: 20 minutes. Source: Arryl Logwit
All of the dark and High Elves had the same haze covering their hands, and they started shooting arrows notably faster and faster.
My guildmates and I stood by watching as our guards sent rapid-fire at the orcs, dropping each of them after just a few arrows. After only a few minutes, the orcs and goblins who hadn’t been downed by arrows, turned and started fleeing back into the Freelands.
Arryl lowered his bow and turned to Shal, who was at the other end of the attack line.
Shal nodded at him as if the simple glance was some sort of unspoken command and lowered his bow as well. He turned to the dark elves and pointed towards the closest to him. “You four ad
vance and clean up any laggards.”
The dark elves nodded and ran towards the fleeing enemies.
The tension in my shoulders relaxed, and I lowered my staff. I felt both a relief that the Scourge were fleeing, but almost a sense of embarrassment that I had awakened my entire guild when it hadn’t been necessary.
We stood around a couple more minutes before Jeremy said, “Well, that was fun.” He holstered his dagger and started chuckling.
Jax walked over to me and patted me on the shoulders. “Our guards are pretty dependable, huh? The High Elves know what they’re doing… not that the dark elves don’t.”
I shrugged shyly and nodded at the same time. Our guards were, indeed, doing a great job. And now that I had seen what a good leader Arryl was, I was nervous about our altercation earlier. It would be terrible to lose such a great asset.
“Any more Scourge we need to worry about?” Jax asked.
“I don’t think so,” I replied as I started fastening my staff. “I think they were just pissed off when they saw me kill one of their goblins. We didn’t mean to lure them this way.”
“Well then,” Gerard said as he walked up to join the conversation. “We’re all awake now, so we might as well get the fire going and have a late-night snack. If you’ve got time, maybe you can tell us why Trynzen’s back.”
I knocked on Aaron’s door while Jeremy and the rest of the gang stoked the flames of our campfire.
Aaron quickly answered and peeked his head outside. He was holding the baby in one of his arms. “What happened? I thought you said the Scourge was coming.”
“Yeah, they did,” I explained, “but I underestimated our guards. They seem to have everything under control.”
“That’s good,” Aaron said with a sigh of relief. He looked down to the baby orc. “This dude quieted down as soon as I fed him a bit of a food ration. Now what do I do with him?”
“Give him back to me. I might as well let the rest of the gang know what’s going on now and get it over with. You should join us by the fire.”
Aaron groaned. “I’m tired as hell, but alright. Let me put on a shirt on.”
I lifted the baby from Aaron’s arms and waited as he finished getting dressed. We both walked outside and joined the rest of Unity, who were all sitting in their usual spots. Gerard was unwrapping an old cut of drope meat he had been storing inside a soggy green leaf.
“You guys are gonna love this!” Aaron said sarcastically as we approached the rest of our gang.
“What?” Jeremy asked.
“Look what Gunnar has!” Aaron said with a cocky smile, pointing his finger towards the bundle in my arms.
Rina got to her feet. “What’s that?”
“Looks like you’re holding a baby,” Jeremy observed.
“It is a baby,” I said as I took a seat in front of the fire.
“Why the hell do you have a baby?” Jax asked.
“A baby!?” Rina cried as she quickly rose. “I want to see! I want to see!”
“Me too,” Keysia said as she started shuffling towards me.
“Wait a minute,” I said harshly and pulled the baby closer to me. “Let me clarify a few things first.”
Rina and Keysia stopped in their tracks and looked at me curiously before backtracking and sitting down on logs positioned by the fire.
“What’s going on, Gunnar?” Jax asked. “It’s not like you to be secretive with us.”
“It’s not that I’m being secretive,” I explained. “It’s just that this might not be what you’re all expecting.”
Sung snickered. “Yeah, tell ‘em.”
I took a deep breath, pulled away the blanket covering the baby’s skin, and held him up so that everyone could see. “It’s an orc child…”
Everyone’s jaws seemed to drop at the same time, and they all looked at each other to make sure they were all seeing the same thing.
“An orc?” Jax asked harshly. “Why the hell would you bring an orc here? Kill the damn thing!”
“Hey, relax,” I said, holding my palm out towards Jax. “It’s helpless.”
“Relax?” Keysia questioned, shaking her head. “I tend to side with Jax on this one. Why are you holding an orc rather than putting a blade to its throat?”
I rested the baby on my lap. “Calm down, everyone. Let me explain things first.”.
I went on to recite to them our journey to Barbarosia—how I had encountered the female orc while we were helping a group of Highcastle soldiers and attempted to save the mother and child. I told them about my completed quest to return Trynzen, how one of his brothers had caught wind that he had arrived in Barbarosia, and how he’d inadvertently killed the baby’s mother, only later to be killed by Trynzen himself.
“And the Barbaros quest giver asked you to bring Trynzen back here?” Rina questioned, trying to piece everything together.
I nodded. “To take care of him for a little while. He’ll be safer here than in Barbarosia.”
“And now you have a new ‘quest’ to return the orc?” Keysia asked, crossing her arms.
“Yeah,” I replied. “The baby won’t be here long.”
“And how the hell do you intend to find its father?” Jax asked. “Orcs in the Wastelands attack humans on sight, and the rare orc who ventures into the Freelands… There’s maybe a fifty/fifty chance it’s hostile, but it certainly won’t be friendly. Actually, now that there’s a war going on in the Freelands, it’s likely every single orc will immediately kill or capture any human it can.”
“I’m not sure how to get it back to him yet,” I said, rubbing my chin. “To be honest. I hadn’t thought about it much, but I’m sure I’ll find a way. There’s always a way.”
“Just kill it,” Jax said smugly. “Forget that damn quest. Every quest doesn’t need to be completed.”
“I feel obligated,” I explained. “I was responsible for his... or its… whatever you want to call it, mother’s death.”
“Not based on what you told us,” Jeremy said. “I mean, she would’ve died if you hadn’t saved her, right?”
“Probably,” I said with a shrug. “Maybe not. I’ll never know.”
“At least you tried,” Jeremy stated.
“We’re surrounded by ash,” Jax said. “We’ve all been fighting to survive against the Scourge. Goblins have been hellbent on killing us, attacking our village with impunity. But now you want to save some orc? Think about that, Gunnar.”
I swallowed hard but struggled to offer a counterargument.
“If you ‘save’ that orc, one day it might put an axe in your skull,” Jax argued. “Hell, I guarantee it’ll come for all our heads if it has the chance. But if you just kill it now, that’s one less orc we’ll have to battle in the future, one less orc for all of Eden’s Gate to deal with.” He spit on the ground. “Fuck the Scourge.”
I understood what Jax was saying, and on the surface, he was completely right. Based on the racial dynamics I had seen in Eden’s Gate, it was likely the orc would grow up to be just another wild green menace. But it wasn’t like things couldn’t or wouldn’t change.
As I considered his words, I noticed Trynzen walk up behind Gerard and mutter something. Gerard smiled, rubbed his hand across Trynzen’s head, and Trynzen scurried away to snuggle up near Keysia’s feet. Keysia smiled at Trynzen, and behind them both, I noticed Arryl hoovering by closely, whispering something to one of the other High Elves. Shal was in the far background issuing orders to the dark elf guards along our village’s perimeter.
It was only then that it hit me at how far we had come. Whether our village was destroyed or not, so much of what Unity had been doing since the very day we put our hands together and formed a guild had coalesced to create something special. If we hadn’t battled norms and taken chances, we would’ve missed out on some great relationships and friends. Our progress as a village was deeper than erecting buildings and opening shops.
“You can’t say that,” I muttered.
“Can’t say what?” Jax asked.
“You can’t assure me that the orc will come for our heads. We don’t know if it’ll be evil or not.”
Jax shook his head. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Look around you, man,” I said.
Jax shifted his eyes side to side and shook his head. “What? Burned trees, ash? You want me to see the damage the Scourge has done?”
“Do you remember when we first came to Edgewood?” I asked. “You had no love lost for the dark elves. Hell, the dark elves didn’t even want us here. But look at us now. We’re guilded with Keysia, and we’re about to colonize our village with dark elves. What everyone thought about dark elves was wrong.”
“No one is wrong about dark elves,” Jax countered. He leaned over and raised his eyebrows to Keysia. “No offense to you, Keysia, but—” He shifted his gaze back to me. “—we haven’t had any problems with the dark elves yet, but they’re still dangerous. I know that even Keysia could turn wild on us someday, but I accept that. At least she’s not a fucking orc.”
Keysia frowned. “No offense taken. I know what I am.”
“Damnit, Jax,” I said, shaking my head. “Why are you and other NPCs so hardheaded?”
“Non-Reborns,” Aaron corrected, raising a finger.
“Yeah…” I nodded to Aaron. “Non-Reborns. You understand what I’m saying, don’t you, Aaron?”
Aaron looked up, took a deep breath and nodded slightly. “Yeah, I have a feeling I know where you’re going.”
I turned to Keysia. “After we met Donovan, we traveled to Thorpes with him, and he was tormented by humans for no other reason than being a dark elf. People assumed he was dangerous, but—” I shook my head. “—Donovan is one of the nicest people I know.”
“The dark elf danger may be real, but we’re not necessarily evil like orcs,” Keysia said. “We’re decent, normal elves up until whatever happens to us happens. We just don’t know when that’ll be.”
I looked to Trynzen. “When you guys first met Trynzen, you were scared of him, but look at how easily he gets along with everyone now.”
