Hura'gh and Lucas left early the next morning, leaving the other two behind to try to get the still running. It was producing alcohol that was good enough for industrial purposes, but Kar’gandin stubbornly insisted he could make it better. Lucas had tried to explain to him that the condenser loop needed to be longer, but the dwarf refused in almost the same language Brog had, which made Lucas smile.
“This is the way it's always been done and the way it always will be!” he insisted.
Lucas made a mental note to see what he could do to chill that reservoir a little more. That was, after all, the reason the “classic dwarven design” was so obviously underperforming in the warm Lordanin summer: deep waters were colder, and the dwarves had little intention of changing their designs to match the surface conditions.
It didn’t matter, he decided as he tromped through the woods with his half-orc companion. He was pretty sure he had a potion of chilling draught in his notes, and hopefully, a few drops of that would resolve the issue.
“Hmmm - I would have thought there’d be more of the little buggers out this early,” Lucas said finally when they’d been walking in circles for what felt like an hour.
“Goblins fear me, as they should. All men should be afraid of the warriors of the open plains,” Hura'gh said without a hint of irony.
Lucas let the half-orc go on like this for a while because he obviously enjoyed it while he focused on any sign that they were about to be ambushed. However, even after another ten minutes of letting Hura'gh lecture him on the superiority of the orc khanate, Lucas still hadn’t seen a single sign of Greenskins.
Is it that stink bomb I set off the other day? He wondered as he sniffed himself experimentally.
Normally, one didn’t have to go out of their way to look for goblins in the Greenwood; they just had to make enough noise to attract their attention. That had always been Lucas’s experience, but then he’d never come here with a hulking seven-foot-tall bodyguard.
Lucas was just pondering whether he should come back by himself or with Adin another day when Hura'gh slapped him on the back hard enough to stagger him as he exclaimed, “You see, that is the only reason we do not already control the West. Because long ago, the humans stole our magic and perverted it to break tribal control of the whole of the realm!”
“I’m less concerned with who invented wizards and more concerned with finding some goblins to slice and dice,” Lucas answered, regaining his balance. “I got shit to do and don't want to be out here all day, man.”
The truth was that Lucas hated fighting goblins, but in this strange fantasy world he found himself in, it was a fact of life. In all his years of dealing back on Earth, he’d never killed anyone, and though people here and there had died because of his actions, none of that was on his conscience. Goblins, though, were just close enough to creepy looking horror movie children that he still felt a little bad doing it.
That wouldn’t stop him, of course. Out here, it was the law of the jungle - eat or be eaten and all that, but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel a little like a murderer every time he cut one of the little bastards down.
“We will find them,” Hura'gh said seriously. “An orc warrior always finds his prey.”
“Hey, no offense, man,” Lucas said, suppressing his sigh of exasperation, “But if you’re so big on the plains and the hunting and all that… why are you breaking legs in Lordanin?”
“Why am I… what are you implying, little man,” the half-orc asked, glowering at him. “Do you think I can’t make my own way away from the city?”
You said it, not me. Those were the words that he very nearly said, but he wasn’t sure if Hura'gh would have killed him by accident when he slapped the shit out of him or whether it would have been on purpose. So, instead, he answered, “That’s not what I meant at all, man, chill out. I’m just saying it sounds like you’d be happier out there, you know? Fresh air and the blood of your enemies instead of digging ditches and chopping trees.”
“My father’s people can be… unforgiving,” Hura'gh answered after a moment of genuine introspection. “I have fought no wars and raided no villages. I don’t even have a proper mount. They would not accept me as a warrior without some kind of honor or renown. It is a difficult burden for the orcs and half-orcs that dwell among the human cities to bear.”
There was also the little fact that a full-blooded orc was a foot taller and nearly a foot wider than the already imposing Hura'gh. Lucas had never had the misfortune to cross paths with one, but they were a force to be reckoned with. Lucas didn’t say any of that for obvious reasons. Instead, he just shrugged and said, “Yeah, I hear those land dragons are really something, aren’t they?”
“They are a glory to behold,” Hura'gh agreed heartily, slapping Lucas on the back again as they continued deeper into the woods. “They’re worth fifty warriors on foot or ten armored knights ahorse, and that does not include the orc riding them!”
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This part Lucas actually listened to, because he found it interesting. He’d known that orcs were a nomadic people, and that they rode the giant scaled lizards that had more in common with an Escalade than a horse. Hell, they were like the evil love child of an alligator and a tank, but that didn’t make them true dragons.
This world had a lot of false dragons. The real deal were supposed to be giant fire-breathing beasts, just like all the stories said, but there were other kinds too. The orcish land dragons, wyverns, and drakes, there were even—
Lucas’s attention was suddenly ripped away from Hura'gh’s words, and even his own thoughts by the sight of a spiderweb not so far in the distance. He looked around, and suddenly found that there quite a few that he hadn’t noticed until now, even as his half-orc companion kept droning on about how fierce land dragons were.
Based on the pattern of the webs, Lucas had been expecting a greater orb weaver or something to attack them, not that he knew much about different types of spiders. It was only when he saw the 8 red eyes appear like orbs that he realized he was wrong.
“Ummm Hura'gh, buddy… we’ve got—” Lucas started to say, pointing, even as he tapped the orc on the shoulder. Save for the eyes, the threat was invisible, but Lucas knew that wouldn’t last for long.
It was only when the spider leaped from where it had been perched in the tree and lashed out at them that its hairy body faded into existence. Intellectually, Lucas knew that it wasn’t illusion magic or anything like that. Instead, it was more like an octopus with powerful natural camouflage.
The short, stubby hairs that covered the abdomen and thorax of a stalking spinner could each be tuned to the color of its choice. As a result, it could blend almost anywhere until it was in a position to ambush its prey with its paralytic venom.
It had apparently decided that was going to be Lucas, but even as it faded into existence predator-style, he dove out of the way and landed with his daggers drawn. Unfortunately, Hura'gh wasn’t so lucky.
“These webs are old,” he said, turning around just in time to get a face full of spider. “Something already took care of this, so we can Hurrkk—”
The spider the size of an easy chair smashed into the half-orc, knocking him to the ground instead of Lucas, and knocking the air from his lungs. Even as Lucas got up and ran to help him, the two were already locked in a mortal struggle.
The orc had his hands on the upper part of its two branch like forelegs, and was using all his strength to hold it off of him, just far enough to keep out of reach of its fangs as it snapped at Hura'gh again and again.
“Get the hell off him!” Lucas roared, running at the thing and burying both blades in its body.
The arachnid let out a high, keening screech of pain as the steel slipped eight inches into its thorax and left long, gooey wounds where they ripped free. Now, it was thrashing again, but this time it was struggling to break free of the half-orc’s grip to face its attacker.
That was impossible, though. With a quick look at Lucas and a grunt of determination, he gripped the thing's legs even tighter in his hands and began squeezing so hard that Lucas could hear the chitin starting to crack.
Lucas didn’t hesitate. If the thing couldn’t turn to face him, he would take advantage, and he charged up to the abdomen and stabbed it over and over again. As he did so, he cursed his short blades.
If I had a sword, this monster would be dead by now! He berated himself, annoyed he hadn’t been better prepared for this.
Another part of him said that he should have poisoned his blades before they’d gone out, but he ignored it. Instead, he focused on doing as much damage as possible as quickly as possible, resulting in dark ichor splattering across both of them.
Still, despite more violence than he’d ever unleashed in his life, it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t over until Hura'gh literally snapped the thing’s stiff right leg off and used the four-foot-long appendage like a spear and forced the jagged thing right down the throat of the giant beast.
“Take this, Monster!” the half-orc roared as he silenced the stalking spinner forever.
It was only when the thing collapsed to the ground that Lucas saw that the half-ord been bitten at least twice and that red blood was mixed with green ichor across his wounded chest.
“Fuck, man,” Lucas said as he fumbled in his bag for a bandage or a healing potion. “I didn’t know it got you.”
“It is only a scratch,” Hura'gh said, refusing aid even as he looked at the puncture wounds. “I do feel a little light-headed, though.”
“No shit,” Lucas blurted out. “These things have serious poison. We need to get you back like asap!”
“We are not returning until we have what we need,” the half-orc said with a shake of his head. “I will not allow my mission to end in failure.”
“If you pass out in the middle of nowhere, then that’s still—” Lucas started to say.
“I will not pass out. This spider did not beat me!” the half-orc roared. “We will feast on goblin livers, and only then shall we return triumphant.”
“Okay, fine, you win,” Lucas said, backing slowly away, muttering “your funeral,” under his breath.
They’d been out for hours, and truthfully, he didn’t like the idea of being out here for hours more. With that much poison in the half-orc’s veins and no antidote in sight, he wasn’t sure what they were supposed to do. Then his eyes fell upon the cocoons already decorating the damaged greater orb weaver web.
Noting the size, he quickly decided that those had to be dwarves, children, or goblins. While he hoped it wasn’t the first two, a couple goblins would be a godsend.
The good news was that they were all goblins, but the bad news was that most of them had already been sucked dry and only green, desiccated goblin jerky remained. Eventually, Lucas found two that squirmed weakly when he opened up their silk prisons, and he quickly beheaded them before harvesting their black livers and the dark purple gallbladders that were attached to them.
It was disgusting work but necessary, and when it was done, and he’d put the organs in the pot he’d been carrying all afternoon just for this purpose, all he wanted to do was take a shower, but getting clean would have to wait until he’d done the truly nasty part and extracted the bile.