Murd had never seen humans and dwarves organized together. But it was when he took notice. Having only been back unconscious for less than 2 days, then being transported across the continent, a lot of things are moving quickly for him.
Nothing so fast as his metabolism, which was telling him he needed to eat with abandon.
Abandon, being his buddy from security school, who had decided that he was going to stick around in the Capitol. When one of the chosen came to talk to them as a group, all the Orcs knew she was the reason that they were there.
“Hello all. I’m Sophie, one of the chosen. I’m sure you’re all wondering why you’re here today and not dead.”
That was some grumbling, but most of the Orcs were quiet. Having not said much while they were in zombie form, this new interaction felt lovely. The entire Orcs that had come through the gate were all eating at several large tables, from what had to be velociraptor meat. Murd did not know where the meat had come from. He did not question it. He simply wanted to satiate his stomach.
“The Goat Lord, my patron, and one deity of all this world saw a fit to give me the ability to resurrect all of you. However,”
There was a shit ton of grumbling. Many people were missing their family members, and had memories of their deaths and undead life. Life. It was unsettling how calm everyone was.
“I understand you may want me to go back and save more of your fellow Orcs. I am saddened to say that this is not possible. The Goat Lord-“
The woman was nearly in tears as many orcs yelled at her. Several dwarves shouted them down, and it took a minute for the group to become quiet again.
“- The goat Lord works in mysterious ways. I can’t really predict when he will save anyone, and the last time he allowed me to do this was almost six months ago. Every goat around you was a zombie before.”
She waved her hands. There are about twelve goats there. Each one wild shaped into a dwarf.
Sophie explained how they had figured out that the goats who numbered only about thirty were sentient and had to figure a way to have them resume their goat form.
Murd was grateful that he already had his druid class.
“Now I understand that this is a lot. We’ve all been through a lot trying to save this continent. Before this happened, they were only two Orcs that had survived from the green Fang tribe.”
Borgan and Song had welcomed many of them and organized them into groups of 100. Every orc was grateful for the two of them and their tireless work.
“Now the next thing I’m going to tell you is important, but I need you all to understand that none of you is required to fight. We are going to spend the next several years clearing out all the little hamlets and towns of this continent of all the undead. No one is going to ask you or tell you to do this. If you want to volunteer to help, we will gladly take your help. But let me make this clear. Clear. Speak for all the chosen on this. No one can make you fight for us.”
Murd narrowed his eyes. He wanted to fight. As soon as they were done? He would volunteer.
“But before we can go clear the continent city by city in town by town, there is one more thing that we need to do. And by we, I mean the coalition of the chosen, the seventy-sixth Dwarven legion, and the assembled companies from the 13 tribes.”
She had to be a showgirl how she was keeping everyone’s attention. But she was also chosen, which meant that she probably had a card power.
“There is one more death knight. When The chosen were summoned to this world more than a year ago, there were five of them.”
She paused dramatically. He knew what was happening next. She was going to invite them to fight, probably. Although she had said she wasn’t going to ask, he knew they were going to get the hard sell. And if not? The soft sell.
“As soon as we have a handle on what’s going on here in Gloucester, the legion will recall itself to regroup here and then we’ll be heading to the Elven Kingdom. Our intent is to take down the last death knight within the next month. After that? No one knows.”
Murd expected the call any second now. There is no way that she was going and not ask.
“For now? We don’t know how many other Orcs remain on the other continents. But those that are here, we want you to think about how you are going to rebuild your society. And soon? Soon? We want to speak at high levels with whoever you elect as your representative. Let me state this again. You are all safe here and we’re going to keep you safe for as long as we can, but we are not going to tell you what to do. Once you’re on your feet, you are free to do whatever you wish.”
She curtseyed.
“I will be here to speak to whoever wants to speak to me,” she said. “With that, welcome home.”
The crowd erupted into talking. Murd could see several orcs trying to talk over each other. He didn’t feel like this.
He didn’t know what he felt like doing. He tuned out the loud sounds of everyone around him. If he was going to avoid this fate of fighting more and more zombies, perhaps he could sign up for a quick tour and then get out. But really, he didn’t know what was going to happen. Maybe it was time for him to prepare a stump speech.
Tried to think of how he remembered politics being and how Orcs would elect a leader. He’d escaped that.
He made his way to talk to Borgan and Song. One of them would be smart.
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“I thought there were going to be fewer trees,” Stella said. “He didn’t mention the amount of trees.”
Bob’s airship pushed its way through the jungle, keeping low so they wouldn’t be noticed. Both Bob and Stella had a fire bending card, which meant that they could keep the skiff aloft with no help. It was big enough for more people, but it felt cozy with just the two of them. There was even a spot underneath where they had just enough room to take a little nap together. Of course, they never did.
“Stella,” he said. “I think they did it.”
“Your quest updated?”
There was only one left. It had to have been updated because of something that the other chosen did. He nodded.
“Well, that makes things different,” she said. “They won’t be tracking us down so easily if they’re all tied up back there.”
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
Bob agreed. In the couple of days since they had left which he had already lost the track of, they had gone so far east and then inland trying to avoid any sea monsters that they’d kind of lost sense of time unless it related to their direction. The only thing that they really tracked was their movement. Because there were only two of them, and they had to rely on winning. Sometimes they were not so much going towards the last death night as they were meandering towards.
If either of them had an air bending card, then they probably would have reached what had to be elf civilization soon. Despite the amount of little hamlets and towns that they passed, the roads all went through large woods. Every so often. There would be a clear-cut area set apart for farming. Most of where they were seeing were tree houses and tree forts.
“Are you still down to burn the place up?” He said.
“I don’t care about that card. If we get it? Great. Either way, I’m with you.”
They only had the biggest idea of where they were based on the large rivers that they passed. Stella had made a version of the map that had served as a guide for them, that combined with Bob’s pathfinding skill. Let them know which way the threat was and if there were any zombies around. Each time they stopped at night, they found a high enough mountain where there was no way that any zombies would have made it up. Some of the mountain ranges that they passed were so tall that no trees grew on them above a certain point. This made it easy for them to pick a spot to sit down. He wondered if they were close to the ice Coke fountains, where they had met for the first time.
“Do you think those are part of the same mountain range that connect to the ice Cloak mountains?”
“They are very tall. I remember the ice cloak mountains as being like the Rocky mountains in height. From a certain angle, you just see them and they just rise.”
They both stared at the next spot that they were going to make camp at if they couldn’t find how close they were to the Capital by the end of the day. Though there were more mountains as they went further east and north, Bob was finding that if they diverged from the path, they were having an easier time resting at night.
“How far do you think we are?”
“3 days? At most?”
He couldn’t be sure. He only had a good guess. If he could follow up on that, guess? He might spend a half hour taking the ship north and south to determine an angle. Without Valerie’s help, he couldn’t determine much.
It’s why he was so grateful for the company. He would have done this by himself but, he snuggled against her as she stood at the helm.
“That feels good,” she said. “You know, the only thing I regret is that we didn’t bring any heavy coats. I wasn’t thinking that we’re going to be spending our time so high up and so cold.”
“It’s that airship Viking life that we’re all about, right?” He said.
She laughed.
As they made their way towards the mountain, fight fighting to get there before the sun decided the day was over, Bob looked East.
For a brief second, he thought he saw a dragon.
It had to have been his imagination. This wasn’t the death knight that made dragons. Otherwise, things might get very spicy.
He blinked his eyes. Whatever He had seen had disappeared.
They landed their skiff for the night and once Bob was sure that there were no zombies around, He summoned his Eldritch feline buddy.
He’d leveled up Ca’at, getting get to where it would stick around for at least 8 hours. That was all they needed. He set it out for sentry duty and then relaxed inside the skiff with her. The small doorway that led up to the top of the skiff let him see the little patrol cat keeping watch. But it kept its eyes eastward as if seeing something he couldn’t.
Something itched in the back of his mind.
“What’s wrong? Bob?”
“Something is going on with my cat.”
He took a second to reassemble himself, putting on some of the warmer clothes they had left. It was only about five steps from the cabin underneath this gift to the top of it. He peeked his head out, trying to see what his guard cat was seeing.
“Well fuck,” He said.
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Anthony was in deep conversation with Valerie.
“Did we finally recover the card from flesh, Weaver?” He said.
It had been a heated topic of discussion. Everyone wanted to get the card out of circulation and put into a vault somewhere. If the car did what everyone thought it did, then it was a national security threat. Heck, it was a civilization destroying threat on its own.
But they hadn’t found it. They had expected to find an obsidian card, a legendary card that let the death knight mold flesh. Or at least mold the flesh of all the surrounding undead. But no one had found it.
Valerie had got worried.
It took the dwarves 3 days to find any obsidian cards. Their search of the wreckage yielded an unexpected result.
Sonya held up the card.
“This can’t be it. But it has to be. It sounds like this card makes the user burn up the bodies of the people that he is using to fuel magic?”
Legendary card: Fuel
You can turn undead minions into fuel for spells. Those used in this manner will be burnt up.
~~The Soul card and cannot be removed~~.
“But this makes little sense,” Valerie said. “Everything points to this specific card being about using the abilities of the death night in order to create flesh constructs. Do you think that’s how it did it? By burning up other bodies, it would find magic to merge them together?”
“If we’re theory crafting, I don’t think that this is the card. I think the card is still out there. It makes no sense,” Anthony said.
“The death knight that had the gate card had full use of it. But it wasn’t strong because of that, just able to go across distances. There had to be some other reason that it knew where we were. Something else tipped it off, but it had the gate card and that was it,” she said. “I have that card and it’s not strong. It just has a very particular effect.”
Valerie shrugged.
“We know that a death knight is gone,” she said.
“What are the chances that this death night is not the flesh Weaver?” Anthony said.
“If this one is not the flesh Weaver, then where is the flesh Weaver?” Valerie said.
Anthony and Sonya looked at the dwarf. He hadn’t been one to think about this deeply, but now that they were talking about it, they probably need to bring a card specialist in.
“Is there a chance that this is the card?” He said. “Because the other death note cards are about as rare. None of the other cards that they collected there are anywhere similar to this.”
“We need to get Finley in here,” Sonya said. “If Valerie doesn’t know? Then maybe he might? And if not, we need to talk to Cedric about whoever they have that knows card lore.”
Nobody wanted to go. But a runner had come from the front with the card directly to the chosen because they were looking for any obsidian, mythic or legendary cards. Even some of the rares had been suspicious, though there were not that many rare cards that had come through. Normally, they would not care about the cards in specific. But right now? When they were trying to figure out what the powers were of the death knight that they killed and how they deferred from the last death night that they had no contact with so far? They were getting a little cautious.
Valerie sent a runner to grab Finley.
5 minutes of avoiding the issue later, the elf showed up.
Sonya explained the problem and showed him the card.
For the first time in a while, all the green drained out of his face. His normal skin looked a bit sunburnt without it.
“So you think that this is not the right card? And you think that what someone stole the card? Why would they do that? This has to be it. There are not that many legendary cards. There are definitely not enough legendary cards of this caliber to go around. It has to be that this card...” He paused. “If this gave the effect that we think it had, then anyone who uses this card could do the same.”
“Are you proposing that we test the card out?” Valerie said.
“If someone's soul can handle it, yes,” he said. “This is one of the magically heaviest cards I’ve ever held. If this isn’t it, then we need to go back onto the battlefield and search ourselves.”
There was little appetite to return. But as Finley explained, anyone could sense the density of such a card. Even a rare or mythic card would be easily sensed. Sonya even took her gig card out from her chest and held it aloft and they could feel the power from it. It was like having been a part of a death knight had given it an extra layer.
“Well, that settles it. If this card that came from a death knight has such a magical weight even though it’s a rare card, then this other card has to have been from a death night. There’s no other way. But this card effect does not match up with what we saw this death night doing. None of this makes any sense,” Valerie said.
“None of this makes any sense if we’re thinking that this death night is the flesh Weaver. What if this death night was not the flesh Weaver?” Anthony said.
“If this death knight was not the Flesh Weaver, then where is he?” Sonya said.
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Bob looked out over the skiff.
“Honey, you’re not going to believe this,” he said.
“What is it?”
“Fucking dragons.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”