[What sort of welcome present did you bring for me? I’m willing to ignore their rudeness if you’ve got something good.] The Chieftain suggested.
“First, I’m only with them because they suspect that I’m a spy from the Golden Dragon Nation, and they’re taking me into custody so they can interrogate me in the city. But I brought you this.” Karl replied.
He handed the Orc the hastily scrawled skill book and the Chieftain took it with a curious look, then flipped it open.
The book vanished, and the air was filled with curses as weapons came back out.
“What the hell did you give him? Was that a skill book! Everyone on guard, the Orcs might have a System User!” The slender, purple haired, Monarch Rank Demon officer shouted.
“Relax, it’s a skill for punching people in the face. It’s Orc-specific, not many others can use it.” Karl explained, with his hands up in surrender, as dozens of blades were pointed his way.
“What was the skill?” The Demon demanded. “Crushing Blows. It’s worthless to me, but valuable to him. Gifts between group leaders are a common courtesy among Nomad groups.” Karl offered.
The Orc smiled and put his hand on Karl’s shoulder, implying that his Clan would defend the merchant if the soldiers turned on him.
Even though they were outnumbered, the Orcs had been on the winning side of the engagement, taking fewer than half the number of casualties that the soldiers had before the fight was halted.
Karl saw that Lotus was running away from the wagon with an Orcish child and silently prayed that she was going to work as a Cleric and not just running away on the whim of a small Orc. She could resurrect, so that was most likely what she was up to.
She had an area healing spell active as well, Karl could feel the holy Magic in the air. Tessa got down from the wagon as well, and began to move through the soldiers, healing them with a touch as she went.
She couldn’t bring the dead back to life, that wasn’t the specialty of her Goddess. Even Lotus wouldn’t be able to bring many back before becoming exhausted, so she would likely focus on the ones with important skills or small children.
Normally, a Nature Cleric would just pick some at random, or do the closest ones. But she had been hanging around Tessa for a long time, so taking care of the Orphans took precedence in her choices.
Especially if the choice was to make them no longer an Orphan by bringing one of their parents back.
The soldiers were regrouping as they pulled away from the Orcs, leaving only their dead behind. Tessa nodded politely as she stepped up beside Karl, with Dana beside her. “Officers, healing of the severely wounded is finished. Your soldiers should be mobile again. There are a few who lost limbs and that will take more healing to recover, but other than that, I’ve done the Goddess’ will.” Ophelia had gone to join Lotus, in case she needed anything. The Orcs wouldn’t bother her. She had already put one flirtatious Orc in his place, and it would be harassment to continue flirting with her today unless she started it.
“Can someone explain to me why there is some random merchant and a pair of Dragon Clerics here in the first place?” One of the assistants to the Unit Leaders asked.
A junior officer nodded and referred to his notes. “The Trouble Seers informed us that there was a spy from the Golden Dragon Nation at a specific location. When we arrived there, we found this merchant matching the general description of a suspicious person that we had recently been informed of.
There is some doubt that he’s the right person, though. We were informed that he should be a Human Elite, but when we pushed him, he confirmed that he is actually part of a Stone Troll Clan. He can regenerate fingers like any other troll, and his blood is black.” The others looked like they didn’t believe, so Karl held out his hand to the Orcish Chieftain, who handed him a blade. He deactivated [Void Body], but left [Trollish Regenerations] as he cut his hand and let the black blood drop onto the ground.
“Evidence enough? It takes a lot of energy to regenerate limbs.” He asked.
The two newly arrived Unit Leaders shrugged. “Looks like troll blood to me. I’ve certainly never seen a human bleed that colour before. Perhaps the seers misunderstood what they were seeing? The presence of the Clerics might have been the Golden Dragon Nation influence, while he was the threat they were concerned about.”
The leader of the first group gave Karl an assessing look. “I still think that if he was flagged as a threat and possible spy, we should bring him to the fortress.”
The Orcish Chieftain stood still, patiently waiting as the soldiers decided what they were going to do about Karl.
“Why don’t we do our business first? The Clerics made a bunch of food when we heard that you were coming. We can take care of the trade while they argue, and then you can do whatever else you had planned for the day.” Karl suggested.
The Chieftain smiled and the two of them quietly moved to the wagon, where Tessa and Lotus had left twenty bags of their creations, split between rice and beans.
“Cleric food usually lacks variety but…” Karl began.
“No worries, Karl. My people love the rice and beans. We aren’t eating it every day, so it’s a rare treat for them to get such a fine crop that they don’t even have to sift weevils out of.
I see that the Minotaurs traded you a full load of tools as well. We don’t need those, but you’ll be able to sell them as soon as you get to a city. Most of the farmers are still Minotaurs in this region. As you go south, you’ll find that more of them are Naga or Lizard species. Naga farmers are good ones, they appreciate a proper fight.” The Chieftain laughed.
Karl began to hand down bags so that the Chieftain could have someone gather them, but when the Orc picked them up, they vanished into a separate space.
Karl activated his interface and looked over the Orc’s name.
{Kilgore, Chieftain of the White Fist Orcs} was written in the traditional brown of a warrior.
Everything was transferred in under a minute, and the Chieftain turned to smirk at the soldiers.
“You know, eventually they will figure out that you’re lying to them. They might not be able to see the nameplate, but even the Demons will eventually reach the point where they guess that your regeneration might be a skill and not proof that you’re a troll.” He quietly informed Karl.
Karl chuckled. “I’m hoping that they don’t come to that conclusion until after we’ve already parted ways. If the World Dragon favours me today, they might decide that I can go about my business.”
The Orc snorted in laughter. “One day, we will find the lost scale, and then we will see whether the World Dragon still favours us or if he gave up on this world.”
The words startled Karl. That statement made it sound like there was a method to their travels.
“Are you searching for signs of an ancient temple or something where the Scale might be?” He asked.
The Orc shook his head. “No, it should have been with a powerful Titan when he died. Nobody knows where his grave is, and nobody has found it yet, either. If we do, and we can recover the scale fragment intact, the Clans should be linked back to the System in its fully active state.”
That was astounding news, on a level that Karl couldn’t fully appreciate. How much dedication did it take for an entire species to agree to search a continent, or perhaps the entire world, for millennia?
That level of devotion would put the average cleric to shame. Not only did they say the words, and preach their Orcish gospel of righteous battle, they lived every day on a holy quest.
For that reason alone, Karl had the utmost of respect for Chieftain Kilgore. But more than that, he would never look at the Orcs the same way again. Just knowing that they were on the same path as he was, a path towards fully reactivating the system, was enough to count them as potential allies and friends.
[Everyone needs a friend who knows when to punch someone in the face.] Cara agreed.