PreCursive

  Well, this was a fantastic start to our infiltration.

  After the Tte uard had, somehow, immediately known that a group of people were entering the city from the batrance, we’d all been arrested. Hook had beey exhausted from his injuries at the time, and had discreetly ordered us to ply with the guard’s orders.

  Before promptly passing out.

  I’d ended up being the oo carry the unscious dwarf on my back as the hulking Orc had paraded us through the streets of Ttec at sword point. He hadn’t even o sp us in cuffs or something. The threat of his extremely sharp-looking greatsword had been more than enough.

  That had been fine by me. Hook hadn’t seemed too armed by the abrupt arrest before king out. Dusk didher.

  I figured this was expected. Which…I would have appreciated a heads-up.

  But whatever.

  It gave me more time to observe both the city around me and the actual residents. This was my first time seeing actual living Orcs.

  They weren’t quite what I was expeg.

  So many people had built them up in my mind over the months that I had been expeg a race of, I dunno, supermen or something. A people that were so muassively powerful than the Humans, Dwarves, and Sculpted that I was so used to.

  But…at least as we’d been force-marched down the ly preets of Ttec?

  They just looked like people.

  Well.

  Grey-skinned people.

  I had been surprised to discover that the grey tio the skin I’d noticed on Tzo’s undead hadn’t just been a symptom of bloodlessness. Or general had a slight heatherish c to them, very lightly tinged with nearly purple. Mostly grey, the darkness of their skin ranged from light to dark in the same way it did on humans.

  I don’t know what I had been expeg. Media from my old world had me thinking the Orcs were going to be a deep green with someiggish features. But no. While their facial features did seem to trend broader than Humans, Dwarves, or even Elven ones, I wouldn’t call them piggish. Just strong.

  They did have tusks and long pointed ears, though.

  The tusks themselves seemed to be a kind of elongated e tooth that poked out of their bottom lips. Males teo have rger ones, while female Orcs were smaller. Their ears weren’t quite like the elven ones, either. Elven ears looked almost rapier thin, to my eyes. Orcs had thicker and kind of curved ears, noticeably lohan my own. I also noticed that they seemed to have a racial tendency to have bck or dark brown hair, in the same way that some ethnicities of humanity did bae.

  None of that had bee on the undead I’d seen, far beh this city. I suppose most of those distinguishiures had either rotted or fallen off, in the passage of time.

  All in all, the Orcs weren’t quite as alien as I’d expected them to be.

  They definitely had different ideas about clothing, armor, ahetics though. uard, for example, was barely wearing more than a leather harness with attached steel pauldrons, a sort of long crimson loincloth, and sandals. Well, other than his admittedly impressive rge purple feathered headdress.

  And the sword. ’t fet the massive obsidiasword.

  But he didn’t seem out of pce among the popuce. The Orcs appeared to trend towards leather straps, barely cealing tunid loincloths, and the occasional robe for cultural clothing. I saw quite a bit of exposed grey flesh oreets of the city.

  Something else I noticed was the ck of anything else but Orcs. I was defihe only Human out here, much less Gnolls, Sculpted, or Dwarves like the rest of my party.

  I didn’t get a ce to tinue my observations before the Orcish guard stopped me in front of a rge, nearly pyramidal-like building.

  “Ihe Guard growled at us, lifting his sword threateningly.

  All right, all right. Don’t get your loincloth in a bunch. The four of us shuffled ihe building, brushing aside the cloth entranceway. Inside we found what looked to be a receiving area, poputed by a number of different Orcs. There were even some well-crafted, fortable-looking padded chairs dotting the room that various Ttes Orcs were sitting in. But the Guard motioned us past those towards the desk at the back of the hewn stone room.

  A particurly bored-looking Or bright green robes wearing spectacles of all things was sitting behind it. At our approach, he looked up at us disiingly. The apparent clerk didn’t even blink at the sight of our eclectic group. “Offense?” He asked the Guard dully.

  The Guard’s thick lips curled. “Intrusion from beyond the walls,” He said curtly. His words caused the Orcish clerk to raise an eyebrow in surprise. The nearby people waiting heard as well, sending a murmur through them.

  The clerk fixed us with a curious look before flipping through the rge book in front of him. After a moment, he o himself. “A pint of tithe, revocation of any possible mert’s lise, and a two-month prohibition from entering the city is the punishment. Escort the prisoo the tithing area, Warrior Izel.”

  Tithing area? Ominous.

  But Dusk still didn’t look armed by anything that was happening. If anything, she looked annoyed. “A pint is more than it was st time,” She said to the clerk with a frown.

  The clerk's brow furrowed. “Make a habit of trespassing, do you?” He shook his head. “All tithings have increased. Yours is not unique.” At that, the clerk looked back down at his book and deliberately started ign us.

  I was shoved forward by the ft of the Guard’s bde. “Through that door,” He growled at us, nodding towards a rge cloth-covered entryway tht. I stumbled but mao not drop Hook. I shot ‘Izel’ a dirty look, but plied anyway.

  He didn’t care.

  …………………………………..

  Turns out, ‘tithing’ was getting your blood drained. Apparently in Orcish society, most punishments were handled by paying a tithe in literal blood. They had a small jail that we passed on the way to the tithing room, but the cells were all empty.

  roup ended up being forcibly drained of a pint of blood each by a disturbingly enthusiastic Orcish ‘Healer’. He hadn’t cared about how Hook was rec from being seriously injured, or that he was still unscious. The dwarf had still gotten drained, without ever waking up. The guy didn’t even need any equipment in order to get it done. He had a Skill for that, instead.

  Amusingly enough, the blood-drainer had shuddered at the sight of Sylvia. She had yet to reapply the human-seeming illusion that Tzo had dispelled, so her Mithril skin had been on full dispy. As a Sculpted, she didn’t actually have any blood for him to draw from her. Problem was, a punishment was still needed for her crime of unwfully entering the city limits. She was given a choice of either spending a week in the jail or having someone pay the tithe in her pce.

  I volunteered.

  So, in the end, the Healer ended up draining me of a whole two pints of blood. The actual draining process was drawn out enough that I didn’t immediately pass out from the loss of blood, but by the time he was finished, I was close. As a criminal, I wasn’t offered a blood-replenishing potion, so I had to weakly paw around in my pouy own. Thankfully, I still had one of those. After all of our travels and without a ce to stock up on more potions, though, I was down to my st one.

  Hook and Dusk hadn’t needed one, so after we’d all been suitably draihe same Guard that had arrested us practically shoved us out the door of the guard station.

  It was fully dark by that time, and Elys was high in the sky. Strangely magical red crystalline lights had been lit on each of the street ers outside the station, ag almost like street mps from bae. It seemed to me that the number of Orcs out oreets had only increased while we were inside.

  The three of us, plus Hook once more on my back, stood around for a moment before retreating into a nearby alleyway between buildings, doing our best to evade the notice of the locals. After everything, we finally had a moment to talk and pn our move.

  First, though, Sylvia leaned in and brushed her lips over my stubble roughened cheek. Pulling back, she smiled at me. “Thank you, Nathan,” She said softly. “I wasn’t looking forward to spending time in an Orcish jail.”

  Repositioning Hook’s ie form on my back, I returned her smile. “No problem. Besides, we have stuff to do.”

  Dusk pointedly cleared her throat, bringing our attention to her. “Our course of a is to pass the checkpoint into Elderwyck,” She said sharply, causing Sylvia and I thten up at her uedly anding tone. I guess with Hook out of ission for now, she was taking and.

  Fine by me.

  I did have ohing to say, though.

  “Did you and Hook knoere going to be caught immediately once we were inside?” I asked her with a frown.

  Dusk eyed me for a moment before nodding. “It was nearly unavoidable,” She admitted. “Which is why it n of st resort. Tctec is well aware of the path that leads from the mausoleum, and their dete wards both extend well below the surfad operate on principles different than our oere never going to pass beh their notice. It oint of fusion for some time now, why the path was said to be unguarded. But that mystery has been solved, sidering Tteewest…asset.”

  Yeah, I guess you could call an apparently tury’s old Li ‘asset’.

  “Yeah, well,” I sighed and grumbled. “A little heads up would have been nice.”

  Dusk just shrugged apathetically.

  Sylvia y her hand on my shoulder and cleared her throat, drawing Dusk's attention.“Will passing into Elderwyck be difficult?” Sylvia asked professionally.

  “No,” Dusk’s eyes left me to rest on Sylvia. She shook her head. “On this side of the checkpoint, the Orcs will be dht eager for us to leave. In case you didn’t notice, people actually from Vereden are scarce withihe Orcs…prefer their own kind, to be blunt.”

  Massive racists, got it.

  “And the other half of the checkpoint?” I asked Dusk. “Are the Elderwys likely to raise a fuss about our appearance?”

  “No,” Dusk said simply. “There are arras in that matter. Reapply your illusion,” She said to Sylvia, who promptly did so in a shower of sparks. The senient nodded sharply at Sylvia’s now human-seeming appearance. “Good. Let us not waste any time. Hook must be seen to by one of our own Healers in a safe house. Now, follow.” At that, the Gnoll woman slipped between Sylvia and I, exiting the alleyway into the street. She didn’t even look back at us as she momentarily wandered out of sight.

  Exging a gh Sylvia, we hurried after her.

  ………………………………

  Ttec was separated from Elderwyck by a rge, deep al that bisected the two cities. Nearly in the ter of that al was a frankly odd building, that Dusk told me housed the actual portal to Indiqua. It was a strange bination of both Herztalian and Xilo stru styles. They…didn’t really plement each other. The rge, nearly keep-like building, was a bit of an eyesore. But it sure didn’t look undefended, from the sheer amount of soldiers from both polities that guarded its ramparts even at this time of night.

  We didn’t actually approach that, though. Instead, Dusk led us to a bridge that crossed the al, guarded on both sides by soldiers. When we showed up, the Orcs were all too happy to shove us across the border into Elderwyck. It was only oher side that we ran into any hiccups.

  “Here, now,” The human Loyalist soldier frow us, holding a ste board and hunk of chalk. “Yer not on the list. Where did ye e from?” He paused for a moment, looking over my shoulder to peer at Hook quizzically. “And what’s wrong with the stuntie, eh? He drunk, then?”

  I did my best to smile sheepishly at the guard. “Ah, he pissed off one o’ the guards,” I said, affeg what I liked to mentally refer to as my ‘peasant at’. “Had to go get drained, he did. Ye know how the greyskins are.”

  Out of nowhere, the guard abruptly baded me full in the face. I’d been hit way harder than that before, so it didn’t really hurt much. I still made a show of staggering away from the ued attack though, my blood pressure spiking. Had I just given us away somehow?

  That wasn’t it, though. The guard glowered at me. “The hells are ye doin’, lettin’ a stuntie cause trouble? Ye know things are tense enough with ‘em as is. We don’t need no more trouble in’ from the greyapes!” He yelled, raising his hand as if to sp me again.

  Even though I didn’t find this guy intimidating in the slightest, I still tried to take a c sta his p.

  Dusk had my back, though.

  She fell to her knees before the guard, clutg at his breeches. “P-please, sir,” She stuttered, with wide pleading eyes. “It were a simple mistake, ho! Ye know how the tuskers are! If ye even so much as look ‘em funny, they's gonna drain ya!”

  The guard paused, looking down at the once again tawny-furred and ragged-looking Gnoll. “Well, yer right about that,” He said slowly, before narrowing his eyes at her. “That don’t expin who ye lot are, though? Why aren’t ya on the list?”

  “That was my bad, Owen,” An ued voice said, ing to our rescue. Following it to the source, I saw another Loyalist Guard had just exited the gatehouse that led into the city. He was a youngish human man, looking to be about my age with light blonde hair. He smiled sheepishly at the uard, rubbing the back of his head. “I know this lot, and fot to mark ‘em down earlier.”

  The Guard interrogating us, apparently named ‘Owen’, abruptly sighed and lowered his hand. “Tom, ye ’t be doin’ that.” He groaned, before waggling a finger disapprovingly at ‘Tom’. “I should report ye for this, but I won’t on at of the lunch ye brought earlier. Just don’t let it happen again, ye hear? Go on then, git. Don’t want ta look at ya anymore.” He finished, speaking to us.

  I didn’t question ood luck, instead hurrying across the border with the others. As we passed the Guard who had e to our rescue, I briefly met his eyes.

  He wi me, and then signed something with a free hand.

  I may have only just started learning the series of haures that Noe agents used, but I still reized that one.

  ‘Aowledgement.’

  Ah. I get it.

  I sig back, before wandering out into the darkereets of Elderwyck with the rest of my apparent cell.

  Finally, we had reached the city.

  Now for the real work to begin.