The Wood Orc clans of Valenwood have sent representatives to Dra’bul, and I’m not even getting out of being declared a king, whether or not I had a severed head with a sign reading ‘Manny the Worm’ outside my gates. How do these things even happen? My obvious reluctance at the appellation does not discourage them even in the slightest.

“We’ll fight for the Dominion, but we’re not going to let High Elves walk all over us,” says one of them. “We will be treated with respect, as equals, and I don’t think anyone else is capable of convincing them of that.”

They… kind of have a point.

“You know I’m not even an Orc, don’t you?” I ask.

“Pfah, don’t be ridiculous. Of course you’re an Orc. You wear that armor and that ring better than a lot of people who were born with tusks.”

I’m not even slightly getting out of this.

“You’re not stomping around declaring yourself a king without the support of the clans, which already puts you a step above that Breton boot-licker up in Wrothgar, Kurog,” says a different Orc, spitting the name.

“I heard he even banned the worship of Malacath because it offended the Bretons,” says another Orc.

“I heard he learned to dance for fancy balls, drinks fine wines, and farts rose petals,” says another.

I’m not quite sure how accurate these rumors are.

“Look, seriously though, if you just want to quietly rebuild the Drublog with your wives, just tell us to piss off and drop the whole Dominion thing. You got a grudge against the Dark Elves a mile wide. I can get behind that, and I won’t ask what brought it on, but it’s obvious. I’m not sending my brothers and sisters to fight without someone who can speak up on our behalf, though.”

I let out a sigh. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

Looks like it’s inspiring speech time. You know inspiring speeches? I’m sure you’ve heard a few. They’re mostly bullshit. You talk loudly and rile up the emotions of a group of people, and once you’ve got a hold of their emotions, you can pretty much convince them of any stupid thing because they stop thinking about things logically. The key point is to know your audience and understand their motivations.

I’ll spare you transcribing this one. Take my word for it that it’s very inspiring. To Orcs, at least.

Also we have lots of food. While I was busy messing with weird magic, hitting necromancers, and arranging insane plans, my new hunt-wife apparently led an effort along with Not-Ari’s team to clear some pirates out of a nearby cave and confiscate all their ill-gotten goods. And, for some reason, the pirates (actually secretly Imperial military working with the Worm Cult, the fetchers) had a ton of fancy paintings and curtains. Orcs are more than happy to hang fancy paintings and curtains in their homes when they’re splattered with blood and taken as war trophies. There’s also a Skyshard, which they brought back just because it’s shiny and probably looks valuable.

This is a bit of a generous interpretation of the word “hunt” but I suppose it still counts, and at least we’re not eating werewolves. Every house has fine new fur rugs, though.

I’m told an Orc chieftain’s second wife is typically the forge-wife, but Grishka has absolutely no talent at the forge and is trained to hunt and fight instead. Roku insists that I am going to need a good forge-wife at some point in the near future and that if one doesn’t randomly fall in my lap, I’m going to need to go out and find one myself. I have no idea how I’m going to do that. The situation with the Orc clans in Valenwood is a little odd right now. We’ll see. I still have a lot of things on my plate.

Like diplomacy. Queen Ayrenn comes to Dra’bul to negotiate with the King of the Wood Orcs, but I think someone failed to tell her who exactly that was.

“Ah, hello, Neri,” Ayrenn says. “I’m here to speak with the King of the Wood Orcs. Do you know where he is?”

I clear my throat. “Hi. Yeah. That’s me.”

Ayrenn raises an eyebrow, and realizes that I’m serious. “You’ve been busy,” is all she can say.

I chuckle. “Yes. And the Wood Orcs would like to join the Aldmeri Dominion. And if anyone disagrees, I will punch them in the face again.”

“You punched Orcs until they agreed to follow you?”

“Hey, that’s how Orcs do things,” I say. “The only reason they hadn’t already signed on with the Dominion is that apparently High Elves didn’t bother to ask nor realize how Orc diplomacy works.”

Ayrenn is struggling with how dignified she can look while stifling laughter.

“There are representatives of the other clans here,” I say. “I suggest that if you want to win some respect, do some sparring. Show them that you can fight and that you’re not afraid of dirt.”

“An apt suggestion,” Ayrenn says with her plotting grin. “I might do that. My brother will be mortified.”

The Queen, of course, brought some of her inner circle with her. Prince Naemon, Razum-dar, some other various important people whose names I’ve forgotten. Raz is taking the opportunity to catch up with his sister, and most of the Altmer have their ‘diplomacy with savages’ expressions on. The potential military support Orcs might bring to bear is forestalling a lot of rude comments they might otherwise be making.

“You killed the King of Worms!” Raz says, as if finally realizing his little sister is actually quite competent. “How is Raz going to ever top that?”

The Bosmer king didn’t come himself, but sent a representative. I’m sure he was just very busy, and anyway, the Silvenar and Green Lady showed up fresh from their wedding. The Mane was apparently supposed to be coming as well, but he’s late and there hasn’t been any word from him yet.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Neri,” Naemon says gingerly, as if the nickname offends him. “Dare I ask why you are dressed like an Orc?”

“They do make good equipment,” I say. “I was wearing a custom set of Bosmer-style leathers before that had to be sized for me. Anyway, it’s comfortable and well-made, and I feel like I should look Orcy when I’m doing diplomacy in the name of Orcs.”

“Why are you speaking for the Orcs?” Naemon asks.

“They asked me to,” I say.

“What about their new king?” Naemon asks, apparently not having overheard my previous conversation with his sister.

I smirk. “Yes, hello.”

“How did you become… King of the Wood Orcs?” Naemon wonders. “Seriously?”

“I may have accidentally united the Wood Orc clans,” I say.

“How do you accidentally do that?”

“All I really did was travel all over Valenwood and beat up or help each and every clan one by one, mostly while yelling at people to stop doing stupid shit. And then married the daughters of half the clans.”

Naemon just stares at me speechless for several minutes. Quietly, he turns on his heel and walks up to an Orc serving drinks for the diplomatic envoys.

“Pour me some more of that Orc swill, would you?” Naemon asks.

“You like it?” says the Orc woman.

“It’s vile,” Naemon says. “More, please.”

Sometimes I feel like Naemon just likes to complain. Especially considering he already drank an entire mug of this vile Orc swill.

“I am completely baffled that we set you loose on Valenwood and you wound up a king,” Naemon says. “And no amount of alcohol will help.”

“Hey, you could go to Summerset and become King of the Goblins,” I say.

“No.”

I snicker. “If you really want to know how, I’ve started giving one of my friends lessons in speechcraft.”

“I spent years learning the intricacies of the courts of Summerset,” Naemon complains. “All the ceremonies and rituals and protocol. And none of it is useful. Not one single whit of it. A useless waste of time that my sister didn’t have time for and apparently doesn’t need. She’s over there covered in mud and her new subjects love her for it.”

“I’m sure she hasn’t made herself a favorite in Summerset due to her willingness to embrace allies who are different from High Elves,” I say. “You have an opportunity, as the ‘respectable’ one, to ensure that the more conservative elements of Alinor society will support the Aldmeri Dominion rather than cause problems.”

“Support my sister from her shadow, as always,” Naemon says.

“I feel that Ayrenn doesn’t really cast one,” I say. “She sheds light on everyone and wants very hard for everyone to be equals. That includes you, Naemon.”

Naemon grunts.

“She’s in a dangerous position and she doesn’t have any heirs of her own,” I go on. “If she dies, it will fall to you to carry on the Dominion.”

“If she dies, it will most likely fall to you to carry on the Dominion,” Naemon retorts.

I stare at him for a long moment and mutter, “Shit.”

“You really didn’t intend this outcome.”

“I really didn’t,” I say with a sigh. “I just can’t leave well enough alone and be a mercenary, uncaring about anything on around me beyond what I’m getting paid for.”

“You didn’t unite the Wood Orc clans just because you like them,” Naemon says. “You wouldn’t have needed to convince them to join the Aldmeri Dominion and commit military support if all you wanted was Orcish wives. I will make no comment on your taste since you are at least not pursuing my sister and I will have words to say if you hoped for my sister to be one of your wives.”

I clear my throat. “I would not presume.”

“You intend to go after the Ebonheart Pact,” Naemon says. “You are seeking revenge. Don’t think I’ve failed to notice that you’re wearing the emblem of the God of Vengeance. It’s not just because the Orcs revere him.”

“Do you blame me?” I ask.

“No,” Naemon says. “But I fear what might happen should you attempt to drag half of Tamriel into a bloody grudge against false gods.”

I nod. “That’s fair.”

“Why are you so calm about that?” Naemon asks.

“Because alternate perspectives are valuable,” I say. “It’s why I keep around a small entourage of people who aren’t afraid to tell me when I’m doing something stupid while still going along with the stupid thing if I insist. Those sorts of people are more precious than moon sugar.”

And I do not constantly remind him of how I had to kill his wife, twice, because she was trying to trash half of Tamriel, and he does not remind me. Neither do I remind him about how he leaped into that weird Ayleid contraption in hopes that it would somehow declare him emperor. Having done stupid things in the past does not mean you can’t tell other people when they are potentially doing something stupid.

The actual negotiations are pretty boring and I’ll spare you the details. Numbers and agreements abound. I swear that half the reason the Orcs tapped me for this was so that they didn’t have to do this.

With still no sign of the Mane, people are starting to wonder what delayed him and I consider sending out a search party when some Khajiit including Lord Gharesh-ri show up, looking a bit haggard. As anyone decent with restoration magic goes to check on them, I question Gharesh-ri on what happened.

According to Gharesh-ri, while they were escorting the Mane to this conference, he went mad and attacked them with claws and dark magic.

“Well, shit,” I say.

I manage to refrain from saying aloud that no one has won their bets on this round of ‘guess the next crisis we have to deal with’ until we figure out whether this counts as ‘betrayal by someone trusted’ (my guess) or ‘mind-control of someone important’ (Merry’s guess). Fortunately, this probably isn’t a case of ‘someone we already killed coming back to life’ (Eran’s guess). Unfortunately, it’s probably not a case of ‘someone unleashes something big and fun to fight’ (Gelur’s guess). And I’m holding out hope that it doesn’t turn out to be ‘something so unspeakably weird that it causes Neri to implode’ (Ilara’s guess).

Gharesh-ri uses magic to locate a ring the Mane is carrying, which points him to a fort in Reaper’s March, the region to the east of Malabal Tor which lies on the border between Valenwood and Elsweyr. It has a rather pleasant name that must connote vast tracts of moon sugar plantations. Those are reaped, right?

I find my wives and Ayrenn talking with one another, and go up to explain the situation.

“Something weird happened with the Mane,” I say. “I’m going to need to go hit things until they become no longer weird.”

“That isn’t much of an explanation,” Ayrenn points out.

“You’ll need to ask Lord Gharesh-ri for details, I’m afraid,” I say. “Not that he seems to know much more.”

No one suggests that just because some people insisted on shoving a title at me, that I’m suddenly not the one here that’s best at hitting weird things until they stop being weird. What would be the point of getting a position for being good at something and then not being able to do that thing? I’m ruling king of violently solving problems.

I leave it to Roku to know best what the Orcs need and can offer and actually do math. The negotiations are already done anyway aside from the most nitty-gritty of details. I’d probably be a lot more concerned about making sure this is all done myself if I didn’t have Roku and complete faith in Ayrenn to have everyone’s best interests at heart. Then again, if I didn’t trust Ayrenn to have everyone’s best interests at heart, I wouldn’t have tried to convince anyone to join the Aldmeri Dominion, either. Not sure what I would have been doing, but it probably still would have led to uniting the Wood Orcs anyway. And I can’t imagine a world in which I would have simply stood by and let Roku get murdered right in front of me. What kind of an asshole would do that?

My team doesn’t need much in the way of preparations, since we barely settled in in the first place and we’re always ready to go. I would have been restless to be on the road again soon enough even if a random crisis hadn’t popped up.