Chapter 16: Interlude One: The Dark Design

            Kruegar hated his new body. But it did have its advantages over his old body.

            He rubbed at his bizarre new face, feeling his four small tusks. Not the least is the lack of those damnable scars. Although these hideous protrusions are hardly an improvement.

            He stood in the middle of an arena, the center battle area filled with nothing but stinking muck. With a sigh, Kruegar splashed forward and dodged the wild swing of his new body’s half-brother, Tusk. Then Kruegar grabbed the orc by the throat.

            With ease, Kruegar lifted Tusk off the ground. His tight grip cut off Tusk’s squeals. When Tusk attempted to swing his sword, Kruegar grabbed his wrist, stopping the attack. Damn, my new hands are huge.

Kruegar kept raising Tusk, the ridiculous muscles of Kruegar’s arm bunching until the seven-foot-tall orc’s face was mere inches from his own, even though he towered over his opponent at nine feet himself. Kruegar’s four tusks widened like he was the predator, a weird sensation as he now had a hinged and segmented jaw, and he showed his teeth to his opponent.

            His skin was the same green gray as his opponent, and they both had bristly, thick black hair—Kruegars cut short, and Tusk’s in an ugly braid down his back.

            Tusk dropped his sword into the sludge at Kruegar’s feet. The sound of it hitting the mud was lost in the cheering of the orcs in the cheap, wooden stands. It was like they were in some demented underground fighting ring, only this was aboveground in a fetid swamp.

            Rather than finishing Tusk off, Kruegar slammed him onto the ground. When Tusk tried to rise, Kruegar stomped down hard, heel first, breaking the leg of the now-screaming orc.

            Then Kruegar squatted and grabbed his opponent’s head by his stupid black warrior braid, lifting his face off the ground.

            “I’m the chief, brother?” Kruegar asked.

            Tusk frantically nodded. Normally, the cost of losing these contests was death, Kruegar had learned.

            “Then say it, you fucking worm. Scream it to the stands.”

            Tusk did, opening his mouth wide and shouting. “My brother, Kavahk, is chief! He’s chief!”

            “Good, very good,” Kruegar said as Tusk screamed the name of his new body to the stands.

            “I can live?” Tusk whimpered.

            Kruegar briefly remembered himself whimpering beneath the belt of the head-mistress at the orphanage, and was tempted—but he knew that safety for him and his true brothers would only be achieved through power. He would make it quick.

            “Of course not,” Kruegar growled. He slammed his hand down on Tusk’s throat,  crushing his windpipe. Then he dropped Tusk into the mire and watched as he struggled to breathe, grasping at his broken throat as it swelled shut.

            Tusk had a lot of Toughness and Endurance, and it took him almost ten minutes to asphyxiate to death—a long, terrible, agonizing process, from the looks of it. A death barbaric and gruesome enough to dissuade anyone else from challenging him in the near future, Kruegar hoped.

            Not that they would get a fair fight, either, but best not to take chances.

            Liam, his friend from Earth, walked through the mire of the arena to stand at Krueger’s side. Unlike Krueger, who had been shoved into an orc body, Liam had become a short, green goblin Entropy and Eclipse wielder.

Liam was about four-and-a-half-feet tall, which, next to Kruegar’s new nine-foot form, was like a three-foot toddler next to a six-foot adult. It was hard to take him seriously.

            With a gnarled staff in both hands, Liam craned his neck back to meet Krueger’s gaze. “I declare, in the eyes of Ikrahkt the warlord, god of orcs, that Kravahk Rockbreaker is the chieftain of the Kelz Tribe!”

            Liam had needed to research for a bit, but he had figured out how an orc became the new chieftain. A challenge, overseen by the shaman. Who was Kruegar’s minion, Liam, which was extremely convenient.

Liam had poisoned the ex-chief’s meal before the contest, and used his Eclipse magic to conceal the notification from him. Also convenient. Liam wasn’t the brightest, unfortunately, but he had been by Kruegar’s side for years, and he did have a sort of low cunning.

            “I take the name Kruegar in light of this victory!” Kruegar bellowed to the silence from the stands. “Kruegar Bloodhands! And this will be but my first victory! We will reap the world together!”

            That got cheers.

            Kruegar turned to Liam. “When this farce is over, get me a meeting with the Laktur tribe’s chieftain. They’re weak, and I think we can threaten them into joining us against others.”

            Liam nodded—he had seen Kruegar’s work before, on the streets and in the board rooms along the West Coast of America. Kruegar figured the little bastard knew where this was going, at least in broad outline.

            He continued. “We need to gather enough tribes to take that city, Port Yuval, as our new headquarters. It’s insane the orcs don’t rule everything. There are a number and they breed fast, and they’re insanely strong and tough. Port Yuval will give us ships, mobility, access to the slave markets and the black market… everything we need to rebuild our old organization a thousand times better here, on this new world.”

            Liam nodded again. “I’ll be sure to look for other opportunities as well.”

            “Sure, Liam. Just make sure that you get the main mission done—you have to admit that you have a tendency to get distracted.”

            Liam nodded sheepishly.

            Kruegar continued, “Don’t get cute, brother. And have Jeremy bring me the new slave before you go, okay?”

            Liam nodded and headed out.

            Kruegar stomped back to his yurt, pushing aside the animal-skin flap and entering his musty ‘home.’ A mostly-naked elf slave, covered in bruises, stared at him in fear as he walked over, and she scrambled back into the corner of the tent. Still within reach, since his tent was small, but as far away from him as she could get.

            He moved over to a wooden chest at the foot of his sleeping furs, pulled a key on a chain around his neck out, and unlocked it.

            Inside, he stared at what he was pretty sure was his most prized possession. A purple ball, like a glowing sphere of energy, that showed him flashes of impossible worlds when he gazed upon it. Asnandi’s Key, he had been told. But no one knew how to operate the blasted thing, which had a small crack in it.

The purple fire that had teleported everyone else hundreds of miles, or more, had only teleported Kruegar to the base of the mountain. Fortunately, another orc had appeared with him. His body had retained skill and language memory, but not event memory. Kruegar had needed to ask the orc quite a few questions to understand this world. Afterwards, he had beaten the orc to death, to make sure his secret remained safe.

            Kruegar and three of his men had made it back from that cursed night to the orc’s camp, after Leo had managed to trigger the explosion of purple fire. The other two were still missing or dead. And Kruegar would never forgive Leo for that.

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            The six of them had been together since they found each other on the mean streets of L.A., and through gun battles, botched jobs, and even a few tours inside after early convictions, before Kruegar had gotten very good at his job. Not one of them lost.

            Kruegar, Liam, Jeremy, and Victor had made it. Jason and Hector… hadn’t. He wasn’t sure if they were dead, teleported too far, or their souls were lost. But whatever the situation, Leo was to blame. And Kruegar wasn’t going to let him live that one down.

He wasn’t fond of that dumb bitch, Audrey, either. But she was secondary goal.

But the orc had told him about the key—the primary artifact of a god, apparently. And one that might hold the secrets of where his last two men were. So Kruegar had climbed the mountain and gotten it again. As well as looted the temple of a fair amount of other treasure, which he had plans for once he had access to real markets again.

            “I’m coming in!” an orc voice called.

Damn. I can never tell these people apart. I’ll just avoid using their names for the time being.

Except Kruegar instantly recognized the orc that entered—it was the one inhabited by Jeremy Forge, his brother from Earth.

Jeremy pulled an elf through the tent flap after him, a female elf with metallic-copper hair and large brown eyes. She struggled as she was yanked into the tent, and her eyes briefly flashed to the furs around Kruegar’s waist. She obviously knew the reason most slaves were brought to Kruegar’s chambers.

            I have far better uses for you than that, elf.

            “Thank you for handling that, Jeremy,” Kruegar said. “Now I need to start the process of finding our lost brothers.”

Jeremy nodded and moved back against the tent wall, still holding the rope around the elf’s wrists. Kruegar pulled a mace off his belt and walked up to the elven woman. She shuddered, pulling as far away from Kruegar as the ropes would allow.

            “You’re Melifluer Moontear?” Kruegar asked. “The researcher?”

            The elf glanced around, never meeting Kruegar’s eyes, and then nodded.

            “You know about the Asnandi’s Key?” Kruegar asked.

            Melifluer shook her head no.

            Kruegar lashed out with the mace, exploding the head of the kneeling elf slave near him. He dismissed the ‘1 XP, rounded up’ notification as Melifluer screamed. Jeremy grimaced, but he didn’t budge. He knew that no fantasy bitch was worth his brothers.

            “Why?” Melifluer said, tears running down her eyes as she recovered from the outright shock. “Why would you do that? Celi was a good woman, gentle and kind…”

            “A bed slave is replaceable,” Kruegar said, pressing his gray, tusked face an inch from hers, watching the tears fall down her face. “But my brothers aren’t. Your knowledge is rare. I have my goal, and now, deep in your soul, you know the penalty for lying to me to preventing me from achieving it.”

            Kruegar pulled back and looked at Jeremy. “Bring me another elf.”

            Jeremy stared at the blood splatter in the room for a moment. Then he slowly nodded. “Yeah. All right, chief.” He handed the ropes tied to the elf’s wrists to Kruegar. Then he exited the tent with a shake of his head and a muttered, “Damn, man.”

            Once gone, Kruegar returned his glare to the elf.

            “Now, little elf, you’ll tell me everything you know about the Asnandi’s Key, and if you don’t, whichever elf Jeremy brings me will die. And I promise you, the next one won’t die easy—they’ll die screaming, over hours. And I will keep that up until I make you bathe in their blood every night, the blood of all the elves who died for your rebellion. Shall we start again?”

            Melifluer stared at Kruegar in horror.

***

            “So, we going home?” Liam asked as Kruegar and his minions feasted at a campfire. They didn’t have proper tables or chairs, which frustrated Kruegar no end, and were simply sitting at one end on a log, eating meat on the ends of their daggers.

            “Melifluer will unlock the secrets of the Key for me, but it’ll take months, possibly years, maybe even decades. Depends on how much damage was done by the crack. And I wouldn’t leave without Hector and Jason regardless.

            “The upshot, then, is that we’re stuck here?” Jeremy asked. “At least for a bit?”

            “For quite a while, probably,” Kruegar said, but he stared toward the sky as he said it, his mind on his possible futures. “I’ve decided I like it here. I don’t plan to leave. Magic changes… everything. We can murder our way to Level Ten, easily, and then level past that. The elves here have talked to me about how I can become immortal. We were all getting on in years back home—now I have forever to take over everything, and the six of us can live a life where no one can hurt us, and we can do whatever we want.”

            “Going to introduce technology to the savages?” Jeremy asked. He pointed at his meal. “Like plates and forks?”

            Kruegar laughed. “At some point. Your dad was a farmer, right, Liam?”

            Liam nodded. “I don’t know much that’ll help, boss. Er, I mean chief. I barely remember anything, just some real basic stuff, like crop rotation and fertilizer. I got the fuck off my dad’s damn farm pretty early, after that one girl accused me and the fucking bastard believed her, and not me.”

            Kruegar nodded once. The basics will be enough to get what I want from massive slave labor. What did the Romans call it? ‘Latifundia’?

            “Well, Victor was a sergeant before he got kicked out over a sexual harassment charge. And you were a coal miner, right, Jeremy? Before they kicked you out for running fentanyl on the side? Important at some level?”

            “Yeah, I was a foreman. Why?” He raised a quizzical eyebrow, which on an orc looked faintly ridiculous.

            “Because the orcs here are a simple people and have no concept of how to really organize or how to build. You three hardly have the exact skills I would have chosen to start a Neo-Lord-of-the-Rings style empire, but it’ll do. Especially since we have a criminally underused force of thugs all across this part of the world. And if we can get Hector and Jason we’ll have even more skills.”

            “Maybe we could just build up a part and run it?” Jeremy asked. “I mean, it’s not like we’ll be hurting for booze or chicks in this part of the world, you know? We could even run it nicer and still get everything we wanted.”

            “Man, fuck that,” Liam said. “I like being the one no one gets to talk back to for once. That’s why I joined up with you in the first place, all that time ago, Kruegar.”

Kruegar smiled at his men. “It’ll be closer to what you say, Liam. I intend to unify enough of these orcs to take Port Yuval, rename it something scary, and then start rebuilding the great Blood Tribe that my supposed father put together. Only we won’t just be a horde. We’ll run this entire Inner Sea if I have my way, sooner rather than later. I’ll make sure all four of us—and someday six—become immortal so we can enjoy the empire we’ve built for all time. And woe to those who stand in our way.”

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