When the lights faded, Wyatt was immediately struck by the cold air of his surroundings. The ground was covered in a thick layer of snow, and the mage pulled his cloak tight to preserve his heat. Even with the relative thickness of his cloak, Wyatt was shivering within minutes of arriving to this place.

The land was dotted with trees – trees that resembled but were not quite the pine trees he would expect to see on Earth – but they were spread too far apart to stop the constant wind that threatened to push the lone human to the ground. Seeing the sun through the clouds, Wyatt oriented himself to continue his travel north. He ducked his head and walked into the wind.

The next hours were spent cursing the god for sending him here. Wyatt knew he would eventually encounter the cold on his trek north, if this planet was anything like the one he had been used to before but, given the temperate weather in his own land, he assumed he had a long time before he had to prepare for the biting cold of snow.

Wyatt’s numb feet kicked something beneath the snow, and not for the first time he fell to his knees. Knowing he could not last much longer where he was, he had decided to retreat into his cloak for the relative warmth of his room.

Before he could, the human’s frozen ears began to make out a sound, distant in the howling winds but not so in reality. He looked up in time to see some kind of creature appear from nowhere, materializing through the constant snow in the air.

Your skill has leveled up:

Perception – Level 8

The creature was a humanoid, clad in leather and thick furs meant to ward off blows and cold alike. It held a bow in its hand, now prominently displayed as an arrow pointed directly at the human. Wyatt looked past the wood of the weapon at the green face behind; long teeth displayed in a snarl of anger.

“An orc?” Wyatt said absently to the thing, as he collapsed from the cold, and then felt nothing.

Wyatt began to stir, the howling of the wind now replaced by the gentle crackling of a fire. His face was warm, further testament of the fire nearby. When he opened his eyes, he was greeted by the same orc from earlier, the anger on its face now lined with that of curiosity. The orc’s yellow eyes inspected Wyatt, looking for any sign of danger. In its hand was a one-handed axe, fully on display for the human to see but not held threateningly.

It spoke a few words now, its language guttural through its long teeth and just as alien to the human as the one spoken by the elf. Wyatt shook his head to show his own confusion, and the orc’s hand jerked to its ears. Wyatt flinched for a moment, then realized the orc was pointing at its own small, pointed ears, then at Wyatts round ones and back.

Then it said a word the human did understand.

“Elf.”

Wyatt’s lip twisted in a snarl before he could tame it, and he shook his head.

“No. Human,” he said, his voice cracking from the dryness in his throat.

The orc must have heard the crack, as it handed Wyatt a skin filled with water. Wyatt drank greedily, before the skin was pulled from his hands.

Wyatt looked back at the orc. It was obvious the green humanoid was angry at elves – a sentiment Wyatt assumed would be the norm among the non-elf races of this world – and it seemed to be less wary of the human. Wyatt could see in the thick muscles of its arms that it was still tense, but the axe was now hanging from a loop in the belt at its hip.

Wyatt ignored everything he had learned of orcs from books and games back home. This world had been turned upside down thousands of years ago and orcs clearly evolved into something less bloodthirsty than they might have been otherwise. That is assuming they were like the orcs of fantasy at some point.

“Wyatt,” the human said placing a hand on his chest to signify that he was speaking of himself. The orc grunted, perhaps understanding the meaning but declining to give his own name.

The situation diffused, for now at least, Wyatt looked around the fire. He hadn’t realized it before, but he was in some kind of tent. It was rounded and small enough for only three or four people to sleep comfortably inside. There was a hole in the roof, presumably for the smoke to escape, and a flap on one side for egress.

Wyatt looked closer at what the tent was made of. It looked to be some kind of leather from an animal but was entirely white, with straps of gray. Wyatt wondered whether the leather was bleached somehow, or if the animal it came from had naturally white skin.

He turned his attention back to the leather armor worn by the orc, some of which sat beside the green humanoid as it tended to its gear. When he first saw it, the white blended with the snow so much that he just assumed it had accumulated on top. Now, however, Wyatt could see that the leather armor was simply shades of white and light gray, with an outer layer of a darker cloth. The only semblance of color worn by the orc was the teal-colored underclothes that peaked through the gray cloth and leather armor.

That, and the green of the orc’s skin. Now that its helmet was on the ground beside it, Wyatt could see the orc was entirely bald. He wondered briefly if that was a natural trait of the race or a conscious decision by this particular orc.

The wood of its axe, bow, and arrows looked like normal wood, and somehow that made Wyatt glad for some kind of normalcy in this world.

Wyatt stood, his hands out in front of him as the motion got the attention of the orc. Wyatt pointed at the tent flap.

“I have to go outside for just a moment,” the human said, trying to mime the words with his hands. The motion felt silly to him, but the orc seemed to understand what he meant, and motioned for the flap before returning to cleaning the leather of his armor. Wyatt looked closer at the armor it was cleaning, seeing for the first time the spot of red it had been working on removing.

Wyatt stepped outside, immediately hating the cold. He pulled his cloak tight, then walked behind the tent for privacy. He had to take care of his business, hating the cold even more as he did, but there was another reason he stepped out of the tent.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Looking at the backpack the orc had carried, Wyatt assumed his cloak of storage was a valuable item. He needed something from inside of it but didn’t want to draw the orc’s attention to it. He waited a few minutes to allay suspicion, then pulled the carcass of a deer he had hunted that morning before being teleported. He carried it into the tent and held it up for the orc to see.

The orc looked at it with curiosity, examining the strange creature. The look on its face as it did so made it clear to Wyatt that deer were not natural to this world. At the very least, it was not natural to this part of the world.

When the orc looked back at Wyatt, its hand running over the brown fur of the animal, Wyatt motioned at the armor the orc wore. It was clear to the orc that the human was not prepared for the weather, and Wyatt was hoping the orc would help him alleviate that.

The orc cocked his head, and Wyatt put the deer down. He spent the next minute playing the weirdest game of charades he had ever played. He didn’t know if orcs shivered, but he still pointed to the flap leading outside, and mimicked being cold, then pointed at the orc’s armor, and at the deer, then mimicked being warm.

The orc.. laughed? It pointed to the human as what sounded like a growl escaped its mouth, then rolled its eyes; a motion Wyatt clearly recognized. It reached into a backpack near Wyatt’s bedroll and removed a long coat similar to his own, but without the leather reinforcement. Then, the orc grabbed a set of boots and gloves and handed the pile to the human.

Understanding the orc’s point, Wyatt tried on the set of warm clothes he had been given. The coat was large on him but wearing it over the clothes he already had on helped fill in the space, making it fit pretty well. The boots and gloves were far too big, and Wyatt had to settle for wrapping extra cloth into makeshift socks and mittens around his hands and feet.

When Wyatt had taken the ensemble off and placed it in a pile by his bedroll, the orc handed the human a knife made of sharpened stone before grabbing a similar one from a sheath on its belt. It motioned for the deer, saying a few words in its guttural language, making a motion with the knife to skin the animal. That, at least, was one thing Wyatt did have practice on lately.

Wyatt set out to skin the animal, stopping periodically as the orc grabbed his hand and guided it in a way that made the cut smoother. Eventually, the skin of the deer was hung near the fire, and the orc inspected the meat of the deer as Wyatt began cutting pieces of the meat for cooking.

When the food was finished cooking, Wyatt offered a piece to the orc, who smelled the strange meat before taking a bite. It shrugged its shoulders, not hating the food but clearly not impressed, before setting to cook some of the venison himself.

The meat the orc prepared was much better than Wyatt’s, who’s own cooking skill had only recently grown to level six. It had used a strange spice that he could not identify by taste and had to examine the container to know what it contained. The spice was some kind of mixture of salt and other herbs, and Wyatt enjoyed it immensely.

More importantly, Wyatt had an idea.

As he analyzed the spice, he read it slowly out loud. Looking from the prompt to the orc as he did. The orc seemed to understand what the human was trying to do, and copied the action when Wyatt was done, giving the human the orc translation of what it had just read. Wyatt picked up a few words, hoping the grammatical placement of the words within the sentences were at least similar to his own.

Wyatt smiled at the ingenuity of learning the orcs language, though the process was still slow going. He only picked up a few words here and there, even then hoping the words corresponded with what he thought they did, but it was progress, nonetheless. After some time of the two reading to each other in their own language, the orc stopped and looked at Wyatt. It stared for a long time, before finally placing its hand on its own chest, similar to what Wyatt had done before.

“Gushnaakt,” the orc said.

“Gusnat,” Wyatt replied, butchering the language as he had been for the past few hours.

“Gushnaakt,” replied the orc, shaking its head as it did.

“Gershnat,” Wyatt responded. The orc laughed at the human’s attempt at orcish names. Wyatt decided to save himself a lot of trouble and placed his hand on the orc’s chest in the same fashion the orc had just done and bestowed on the orc a nickname.

“Gus.”

The orc rolled its eyes but accepted the compromise.

“Gush,” it said back to Wyatt, then pointed at the human. “White.”

“Close enough,” Wyatt said, mostly to himself, and smiled back.

The orc pointed to the deer skin before saying a few words Wyatt still didn’t understand. It moved its hand upward, then slowly rotated it toward the ground, drawing an arc. Wyatt realized the orc was saying the leather would take some time to dry by the fire. It pointed at the bedroll Wyatt had been on when he awoke, then pointed to his own.

“Sleep,” the orc said, probably, and Wyatt nodded his head, only now realizing how drained he still was from his trek through the snow. Wyatt did not completely trust Gus, but he at least trusted the orc had no reason to, and showed no intention of hurting him.

Besides, all of Wyatt’s important equipment was safely stored in another dimension.

Wyatt awoke sometime later with a start. The action must have made more noise than he realized, since the orc had shot to his feet on the other side of the tent, and was looking around frantically, its axe held ready. When his eyes locked on Wyatt’s, the human tried to calm him down with his hands, showing that the danger was only in Wyatt’s mind. The orc seemed to understand, and eventually calmed down enough to take a seat on the stool he sat on the day before.

The orc boiled some snow from outside, then crumbled some kind of leaf into the pot, mixing it for several minutes as the liquid turned a dark red color. When it had finished, the orc poured two cups and placed them outside in the snow to cool. After several minutes of silence he offered a cup to Wyatt, then drank some himself. The human took the cup of the strange liquid and drank it, feeling a warm sensation flow through both his body and his mind. He felt calmer than he had in a while and wondered briefly if he had been drugged.

“Tea,” Wyatt said to Gus, who answered with another word in his own language.

After eating some of the deer from before – a meat Gus seemed to enjoy quite a bit when it was prepared properly – Gus began putting on his armor. When he was fully equipped, he pointed at his eyes, then pointed outside, and Wyatt assumed his intention was to scout the area. He nodded, pointed to himself questioningly, but the orc only shook his head. He had intended for Wyatt to stay here and wait, and Wyatt nodded.

The human brought out some paper and began to fill in his journal. He hadn’t had any entry for days and decided he needed to take notes on this strange race of sapient creature. When he had taken down notes on the physical observations he had made, he began to fill another page with his notes on the language.

Finally, Wyatt began to think on other observations he had made of the orc, namely his reaction to first seeing Wyatt when he thought him an elf. Gus had been angry and would have killed the human without thought if he hadn’t collapsed in front of him, most likely prompting the orc to inspect him closer with any immediate threat gone.

Additionally, Gus’ reaction to his violent arousal from sleep was a response bred from struggle. It was clear the war of the elves had made its way north, and the orcs had not been spared. He wondered what had happened to the orc to cause such a visceral response to danger, but until he could communicate better with his new acquaintance, Wyatt could only speculate.

The tent he had set up for himself looked like it had been here for a few days, at least, with the grass on the ground having been matted down but not destroyed altogether. The nature of the tent and the sparsity of any comforts made it obvious the orc could pick up and move when he decided it was time, though it looked like one lone person would have difficulty carrying everything.

Which led Wyatt to another observation: there were three bedrolls in this tent. Since his own bedroll lay unused in his storage, and was clearly made of a different material, it was obvious that they were intended for others.

Perhaps the others will return with Gus? I hope they are as understanding as he is.

Shortly after Wyatt’s calligraphy skill increased to level eight, Gus returned to the tent. The orc was in a hurry, grabbing Wyatt’s spare clothes and throwing them at him. The intent was obvious, and he put on his warm clothes quickly, followed by his cloak, discreetly putting his paper and quill back into the folds. Gus had put out the fire immediately and now stood at the entrance, peeking through the flap at something Wyatt could not see.

Wyatt became worried, but somehow knew what would make the orc so nervous.

Elves.