It was twilight as Ren regained consciousness, his headache with a painful stabbing. His entire body was covered in a cold sweat as Cella sat beside him. On his awakening, she spoke.

“Ren! Are you alright?” You passed out when the chief gave you something to drink. I thought only the worst. I almost attacked them before seeing how the chief was trying to help.”

“Yeah, well I’m not sure I’m still alive after all that…” Ren held his head while looking at her.

“What happened? What did he feed you?”

“It was something that let me see the past, the past of orks and men. I saw a moment in time where a man betrayed the laws of orks, and then the other humans began to doubt the orks, eventually a fight broke out.”

“Why did he show you such a thing?”

“I believe he wanted me to know how orks and men are different, how other differences led to fighting. I think I should speak to him, could you try to get him here? I don’t think moving around much at the moment is a good idea.”

Cella nodded with a concerned expression. It was a few long minutes before the orkish chief came into the small tent that held Ren bundled up in hides.

The chief sat down before Ren, the open flaps on the tent made it difficult, but the chief managed to get comfortable in the small tent. The massive ork looked down on him and spoke.

“So, man, do you understand?”

“Yes, I believe you do. Our fundamental natures are different, but so am I. I came here from another world, and I was given great power by unwittingly coming here. My only choice is to become strong so the fabric of this world isn’t destroyed by the thing that sent me here. A God that wishes to devour this world, only if I seek the power to stop that can I live.”

“Just as orks are, you too are alien to this world? I have meant no others that have come here from another realm. I see why we may be able to help you. You must tell me though, why do you believe you can become strong enough to fight a God?”

Ren spoke of how he came to this world, and how he was hunted. He spoke of the Underdark, and what he had found in those depths. It was an hour before the full tale was relayed to the chief, and through it the chief spoke no words, nor made a single expression.

The chief at last spoke. “You tell me this tale, do you expect me to believe it?”

Ren looked astonished for a moment. “Did you let me explain all of that, without ever believing it? Believe me if you don’t want this world devoured by an Eldritch God, or call help me get stronger.”

“The last part, to help you get stronger? There is no such thing for orks. We do not ascend. Orks get stronger, but not as you do. It is no soul and body coming into unity as we pass thresholds and gain power. Orks simply are. An ork does not ascend, and we cannot help you learn the power of men.”

“So, then at least teach Cella how she can use the life affinity better. I can see all of you using it constantly. It's like all of you are just oceans of it.”

“We do not use anything such as you speak of. We simply are.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means we fundamentally are made of this ‘life affinity’ you speak of. Might I ask a bird how to fly? It simply does by nature. It is only the way of men to learn to fly, or to learn to be orks, when you are neither.”

“Is all of this useless then?” Ren began to grow terribly frustrated.

“I do not know. You may learn from orks, you may study our ways. You have come openly to orks for guidance. No men have done such a thing in generations, at least not that I have heard. You can be welcome to an ork’s fire, but you will behave. If you conduct yourself properly, you may study and learn from us if you like. I do not know what you may learn, or what might change of your fate. What will be, simply will be.” The chief let out a long and deep breath.

“I cannot use magic though, right?”

“Magic is unnatural. To use such a thing is to try and dominate the world. I will not say you are forbidden it, if your life depends on it, I do not expect to see you willingly die. But, I do expect you to respect the tradition of our people. You must refrain from such things in all other conditions.”

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“I can do that. I do find myself lacking physically, most of my power comes from magic.” Ren felt his aching head and drank water that was laid beside him while he was unconscious.

“Tell me, man, what is your name?”

“I am Ren. What of you, ork?”

“I am Juto, chief of the Raging Roars. We are peaceful, do not let our name fool you. We are named after what beasts we hunt the most.” Juto gave a small smile.

Ren returned the smile even though his head still pounded. “I think Cella would kill me if I didn’t stay here and learn from you. So, I believe it’ll be for the best for us to get along.”

The chief grasped onto Ren’s forearm as a greeting. Though eldritch tongues didn’t translate gestures, Ren understood. The chief will accept them, and he’ll try to understand whatever Cella sees in the orks.

The chief left shortly after, Ren and Cella together began getting ready to sleep. Though they no longer needed to sleep so often, it felt right. It would be odd if they stayed up all night while the orks slept. Even though they seemed to be on a similar level, and similar ascension threshold as Ren and Cella, the orks were different. Their bodies functioned just as humans did, that’s how it seemed at least.

The chief ork at least, did seem different. Ren regretted not using his analysis on the older ork, it felt disrespectful though. Whatever the two of them were to learn from the orks, Ren doubted it would be terribly useful. At the very least, the two of them would learn to live simple lives in the woods just as the orks do. At best, Ren figured Cella would become some all-powerful druid, but alas, that was just a dream.

It was not long until dreams came to Ren, the two slept side by side in the small tent. Though made for orks, the tent did not leave much room.

Ren felt himself floating in the infinite darkness again, just as he had felt when he fell into the ocean below the Underdark. It was as if a true void surrounded him, and no gravity existed to pull him down.

In the vast nothing, Ren felt safe. It was the blanket that kept him warm, and it was the fire that warmed his drink. Then it became as if those things did not exist, as if in the void his mind did not perceive the negative. There was no cold, no vile things were hiding in dark places, and there was no worry. Only peace existed in those moments.

The moment of blissful peace was consumed. The void became what lurked within, the thing beyond. His all-vile indescribable horror of a patron. The slithering tentacle in the back of his mind, and the black bile of his vomit. A horror beyond his comprehension, the sickness of it gave his mind convulsions. The idea of it ruined him, and so he fought against the vast wrongness inside his mind.

The void to him, it was peace, it was aloneness that meant all horrors of the world were gone. It was the peace of a good death, of the end of a story. Yet this thing was the void, the vast meaninglessness of existence, the loss of all one can cherish, and the vast loneliness of losing all that one loved.

Ren rejected the presence that seeped into his mind, he created a shell of the nothingness. A vast infinity stood between him and the Eldritch God. The barrier was made of a thin sheet of the void, and yet it represented a vast unknowable space. It was the concept of infinity, and thus impenetrable. That was his thought at least.

A tendril of the thing’s influence touched him. He revolted at it, again and again, he pushed it away, and yet the presence was inside of him. He was the egg of the beast, the harbinger of annihilation. He was the problem, and there was no solution.

Cella laid beside Ren as a cold sweat trickled across his skin. She touched his forehead, his dreams were horrific, and she felt the twisting inside of him. With a touch of green light, she tweaked the pathways of energy inside his body. It was far different from growing a plant, and yet she tried anyway. With swirling life affinity she healed his body from the damage done earlier.

Ren’s nightmares continued. Cella fretted over him again, and again. Her work did nothing to soothe his unconscious mind. She remembered how the orks were living bundles of life affinity. With an idea, she tried something new.

A small piece of the life energy flowing through her was pulled away. She felt a hollowness as it left her, a wrongness that was unnatural. Regardless of how it felt, she pushed onwards. The small piece of green energy became a small string, no less fine than a strand of hair, it linked them together.

With all of her willpower, she pushed a pulse of man through the fiber connecting them. She felt herself weaken as the energy was eaten up by Ren. A faintness washed over her, though she was far from depleted of energy, she felt the same backlash as if she overused magic.

Ren fought against the nightmare of his patron. Worming tendrils of vileness pierced into his body again and again. Every time he felt the sharp stabs of another tendril piercing into him, the will to fight back became weaker.

When his will to fight back had almost died, and with a score of different tendrils stabbing into him, something happened. He felt a pulsation of life flooding into him. The tendrils within him rotted away into nothingness.

Life retook his mind as the infinite void around him recoiled. The egg of the eldritch god inside of his soul tried to pull itself away from him. The power fought as it tried to permeate the eldritch egg within his soul.

The powers of his patron retreated as the life energy took over Ren.

His smile was plain, even in the darkness of the tent, Cella’s smile joined his as she felt the unease and worry inside him die. She quickly subsided to the exhaustion the act had caused her. Her dreams were pleasant, though not as blissful as the relief Ren felt.