If you haven’t touched your emotions in a while, those things want to keep you down when they finally get loose. They try to run wild, crushing rational thought against the wall as they pound through the corridors of your mind. They cackle like ghouls and crackle like lightning, drowning out your attempts to reason with them. I don’t know if it was a memory or some crazy Thorr’un death’s door flashback, but hearing Annie’s voice, reliving the day my family left…

It had driven a knife right into my emotional core.

Right next to Zughat’s knife up under my sternum.

But I wasn’t down for long.

Curling up in a little ball of sadness wasn’t going to win me any sympathy, and it certainly wasn’t going to help me deal with what was in front of me — a hulking warrior chieftain who seemed like the brawny, loincloth crossover between Tarzan and the Hulk. Instead, I breathed, and the emotions receded. I shoved them into the box I kept ready at the back of my mind, open and hungry. I scowled, and the only one that remained was a burning frustration.

I had allowed this to happen. I had lowered my guard, and a knife in the chest had been my reward. For a minute, I considered pulling Thorn off my finger and making a go at the towering orc. Zughat was still standing, watching me, his heavy features half in shadow. The torch flickered by the door, light brushing over one shoulder and splashing across his broad chest.

But what was that going to get me? Nothing but a momentary and meager satisfaction before a whole tribe of barbarian warriors dropped on my head like a guillotine. Or, likely, before Aleesi’s father disarmed me and gutted me back to zero hit points with my own weapon. I hadn’t experienced death in Thorr’un. Not really, anyway. Not yet. And if what I’d just been through was an appetizer then I wasn’t interested in the main course.

“So.” The word got stuck in my raw throat and I coughed, swallowed, then continued. “What now?” My voice was my own again, the way I used to sound when I was talking to myself. Low and hard. It was solid, too, and made me feel like I was finally back in my own skin.

The orc leaned forward a little, and his dark eyes caught a glimmer of torchlight. “Now you have a choice, Jondalar.”

“Yeah?” I winced as I pushed myself up the wall. My legs were heavy and my knees didn’t want to unbend. “What’s that?” I swayed, lightheaded, and my palm pressed cold against the smooth wall of the tomb. I might be back, but my body wasn’t happy with being so recently deceased. However momentary it might have been.

Zughat made no move to approach, and I was grateful. That big stone knife still hung loose in one hand. “I know, now, that you are a man of truth. You are Undying. And I can use an Undying man of truth.”

I didn’t answer.

“But I know, also, that you have no reason to trust me or my People. We have imprisoned you, tried you, and…” he gestured vaguely with his knife hand. “Killed you.”

I still didn’t answer, was waiting for him to tell me something I didn’t know.

“You have every reason to distrust me and wish me harm. I understand this. But,” he raised his other hand, a large finger extended to make his point. “You can still choose the other path. I wish to use you. A weapon, a tool in building the future of my People. If you will wipe clean the past and step into this future with us, the People will accept you. I will see you trained as one of my fighters, and when the time comes for our Long Walk you will walk with us. Then, when we reach the world above, you can choose your own way.”

“You’ll be listening to Old Mister One-Eye, then?” I asked. “Going through the whole March of the Penguins routine?”

Zughat’s shoulders rolled in a mountainous shrug. His voice was deep and smooth as an underground lake. “I will be doing what is best, leading my People as a good father should. And you would be learning and serving, a warrior son.”

My frown twitched, unsure if he was being paternally patronizing or just talking like he was from a poorly-written play where all the dialogue was symbols and metaphors. “And if I don’t want to serve?”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“You have done nothing wrong,” the orc admitted. “But Mada Munza has said that the bogaddah can smell you out through the dark. If your presence brings danger to my city and you do not serve our purpose, then you are not worth protecting. You would be permitted to walk free.”

“Out in the tunnels.” My words fell, flat and lifeless as pancakes flopping onto the floor.

“Yes.”

I let out a long sigh, leaning back against the wall. My legs felt a little stronger, but I would have sat all the way down if I hadn’t been trying to make myself seem confident and unharmed. I didn’t think I was being unrealistic if I gave myself just days to live, out there. Probably being generous, actually. I wouldn’t know how to feed myself, for one thing. And even if I did, there was apparently a whole race of psycho killers that could smell my Undying body odor for miles.

“You are alone.” Zughat’s voice rolled on, speaking like he could read my thoughts. “You have no allies. You have only enemies. And yet you have done good when no one asked it of you. You helped my daughter escape the zumagi. You saved her from the naathul, first from their webs and then from their poison.” A frown creased his dark, half-shadowed face. “You fought against the bogaddah, protecting her once again when she was still weak and recovering.”

I remembered Aleesi, crouched with a kitchen knife brandished in one hand, and decided not to bring up the fact that she had seemed perfectly capable of protecting herself.

The orc took a step forward now, and though his voice remained even I could tell he was trying to convince me. “I can say nothing else but this,” the chieftain’s face was still half shadowed, but it was also half lit. The one dark eye that caught the fire looked surprisingly understanding. “You seem a good man, and down here there are too few of these to waste.”

You seem a good man. His words bounced back and forth in my mind. Aleesi had said the same thing. And even though she had only said it to trick me into lowering my guard, Zughat was right. I had done some good here. I had done something good. For someone else. For no other reason than I was there and I could.

“I…” I closed my mouth, hesitating, tightening my jaw. I was alone, like the orc had said. I hadn’t always been. But, every time, I wound up with nothing more than regrets.

I saw Annie, pretty and unworried. It was easier to imagine her face than it used to be. She was one of a kind, and she’d seen something special in me, even when I couldn’t. I saw Kyle. Harder. Not because I couldn’t remember the details of his features, but because of the pain and the fear I’d seen when I turned back for the last look that I knew I shouldn’t take.

Zughat was right.

I didn’t want to regret everything I’d done. I wanted to be better, maybe. Or, at least, not so bad. I had no one down here, and it was time I picked a team. And the orcs, who had done me the most harm, seemed the least of all possible evils.

Ironic.

“How?” I had expected the word to feel like a surrender. Somehow, though, it rose with a tone that felt uncomfortably like hope.

The orc spoke slowly, picking his words. “Now, you rest. Then, you train. Then, you work. The time for the Long Walk approaches, but there is much to be done and our enemies are many.”

The golden script that rippled into existence before my vision barely surprised me. I guess I was getting to be a veteran of this place.

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Zughat has offered you a QUEST!

March of the Penguins

The people of Thorr’un see AvatR players as powerful, imbued with strange and unknown magics. Using this to your advantage, help Zughat and his People to overcome obstacles and enemies as they prepare and embark on the Long Walk, a mass migration.

Note: Accepting the quest “March of the Penguins” unlocks additional side quests that you may or may not choose to take. These will be indicated with an MP symbol.

Reward for success: XP and safety!

Penalty for failure (or refusal): Freedom to roam the tunnels of Thirdohr until you die of starvation or goblin attack.

Yes/No

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I grunted to hide an involuntary chuckle as I read the quest’s title. Then, I squared my shoulders and pushed myself off the wall. “I’m ready to serve, Zughat.” The word Yes glowed briefly, then the text shimmered from existence. Serve, I thought. But no one said anything about trust. “But now, tell me one thing.”

The orc shifted his weight. I heard the soft whisper of blade and leather, and realized he was finally sheathing the bloodstained knife. It made me wonder if he’d been worried about the anger of a betrayed Undying.

Ha. That’s me. Wrath incarnate.

“What is it you wish to know?”

I nodded to myself. I hadn’t been sure, until this moment, if I was going to ask. If it was important enough, when my own life was on still the line. But it was about time I cared for someone else’s survival, again.

“Where is the zumagi?”