Once I skinned and butchered the horses along with a few others who had picked up these skills, I went over to join the elders going through the wagons. The first wagon contained nothing but bolts of cloth. They were nothing that the ogres would want, but were probably fine materials that human or elven tailors would benefit from.

The second wagon was full of casks of wine and a few other liquors. Wine was too weak for the ogres that preferred a type of moonshine that they distilled themselves. It was one of the few things that they could make, although I wasn’t convinced it wasn’t just paint thinner. Ogre constitutions were tough and for it to burn going down as much as it did, well, that said something.

The third wagon was a jackpot for me. It contained a variety of foodstuffs. Mostly it was spices and sugar, but there were also various cuts of meat, vegetables, and various dried fruits. There was also a set of well-crafted cookware, with everything from mixing bowls and whisks to a rolling pin.

It was almost like someone had custom made this wagon for me; it was going to help me complete one of my quests. Then it started to make sense when I found a cookbook. It had some flowery script which, interestingly enough, none of the other ogres could read. Apparently, my time as a player still earned me the ability to read elven script.

The thing was that even though it was written in elven script; it was clearly not written by an elf. I had seen their writing before. It always looked like entries in a most ornate calligraphy contest. This seemed more like a human trying to write in elven. As I deciphered the words with a bit of trouble, my suspicions were confirmed. This entire caravan was a gift from some human royalty to elven royalty.

For reasons that were not completely clear, it appeared one of the elven princesses was soon going to be living amongst the humans. The cookbook contained some common human recipes. And wishes were expressed that Princess Aliathia might learn about some of the human dishes that she was going to be expected to eat soon.

The cloth was said to be a gift for her to make new outfits. The drinks were meant to help them see humans were not entirely uncouth as were the food stuffs. If I had to guess, a political marriage had been arranged, and we had just raided the gifts that were meant to help make the elven princess feel more comfortable with the impending nuptials and her need to live amongst humans.

I could read about drama like this all day. I never got this kind of drama in my real life, but a good story sucked me in. I just hadn’t expected Legends of Selmia to incorporate such complex relationships into the NPCs. It made me even more impressed. Or it would have if a sinking feeling hadn’t hit me. This was what it needed Hybrid Intelligences for. The AI wasn’t very good at understanding human relationships or drama and it needed us to help accomplish the same depth of feeling.

I wasn’t going to complain though because as soon as I read the first recipe in the book; I got a notification that I had completed another quest.

Congratulations. You have completed: Where Do I Fit? 1.1b With these new foodstuffs and recipes, you will be able to raise the quality of life for Ghazban village. You will make yourself more valuable than ever. Your haul far exceeds the minimum requirements of the quest. So, your XP reward is upgraded to 900. The 30 silvers will remain the same because, well, it is just so appropriate. The new recipes you can now create will drive the ogres to expand to get more and better food. You have opened their palates to an entirely new world. Nothing leads an ogre more than his stomach. Strength may be the ogre way, but food is their weakness. The reward was great. It pushed me up to 4,874 XP along with the small amount I had won during the raid. I was so close to being able to hit the next threshold that I could almost taste it. The urge to run into the forest and fight something filled my thoughts, but then the smell of burning meat hit my nose. Both the ogre that I was and the cook that I was becoming couldn’t stand that smell.

I rushed over and shouted instructions for the other outcasts. We got the spits turning properly again, and it became obvious that the horse meat was mostly cooked by this time. What shocked me was how unbelievably delicious it smelled. I had always loved the smell of bacon as it cooked, and yet somehow this was even better.

There was something on my chin and as I moved to wipe it off, I realized I was drooling. I was literally salivating over the smell of grilled horse. A part of me wanted to scream while the ogre instinct in me just wanted to eat it.

All the village was circling around the fire pits. Eighteen full horses had taken a long time to butcher, even with help, and it was time for the evening meal. The sun was starting to set. And my stomach was not the only one grumbling. Before I realized what I was doing, I had leapt to one of the spits, pulling away a sizeable chunk of flesh. I felt the urge to gorge myself on the meat.

When one of the warriors came to pull it away from me, I blasted him back with a Frost Rift and then ran far enough away to eat my prize in peace. The sound of more fighting broke out all around me. A notification was flashing on my display, but I didn’t bother to read it. Later, when I checked, I saw it said.

You have failed to resist ogre hunger. Till your hunger is satiated, you will become feral and act to fill your belly above all other needs. It sickened me after I recovered. I had fought repeatedly against the other ogres. Each time I won. Thankfully, I didn’t kill any of them. I did, however, see more than one dead ogre. As clarity of thought came back to me, I made a mental note never to be around cooked horses again, because it caused a primal urge. I didn’t know if I would ever be able to resist it.

On the upside, my belly was full, and I had gained another 45 XP from the fights over food. I now noticed that none of the elders had been affected by it. Something about their level must make them able to resist urges like this. It wasn’t that they didn’t eat any of the horse meat, just that it didn’t drive them berserk.

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The village settled down after everyone had filled their bellies. Some of the weaker ogres didn't end up getting much to eat, but the strongest got their fill. That was just a simple fact of life as an ogre. It was something I had to adjust to for however long I was going to be stuck here. I honestly hoped that wouldn't be for much longer, but I also didn't want to give up any opportunities that existed here.

What was new, however, was that for the first time, it was not all the outcasts who ended up on the outside. Some of the shamans had asserted themselves enough to fill their bellies. Ghazban village would never be the same after this.

I made my way over to Shemi and the others as they were going through the remaining wagons. They had skipped the fourth and fifth wagons because whatever was inside them was locked inside metal boxes. Not that they couldn’t get through them, but no matter how fearsome ogres were, I had learned many things about them since living as one.

First, as had just been displayed, ogres were incredibly controlled by their stomachs. It is probably a good thing for all the civilized NPC races that ogres have never developed a taste for the flesh of humans, elves, or dwarves. Trolls were bad enough, but since trolls were far more solitary creatures, they didn’t present the same threat that a hungry tribe of ogres might.

Second, it has become painfully obvious that ogres were lazy by nature. They made next to nothing on their own. Only the outcasts had been forced to do anything approximating chores. The others hunted or lazed about. It was part of what made me comfortable teaching the ogres better leveling skills. Having shamans and these added techniques would make the ogres more of a challenge for players and NPC nations alike, but the brutes were simply too lazy to make much use of the technique.

The sixth and seventh wagon held what interested the ogres the most. There was an assortment of weapons offered as gifts to the bride's father. I found some of it strange. Most of these weapons were human sized and unlikely to be the preferred weapons of the elves. But then again, maybe there was more at play here than I understood.

Since the armor wasn’t magical, it wouldn’t be one size fits all, but Tulbat started handing out shields. Those were the easiest pieces for his warriors to incorporate into their fighting. They also worked very well with the strategy of pulling mobs I had shown them. Other pieces like greaves could be beaten into bracers of a sort and some of the breastplates could be shaped into helms. It would all be crude, but still any protection would be an improvement.

We then went back to the other wagons. These had each held half a dozen soldiers, so it was obvious there wasn’t going to be much room in the back of them. But in the center of each there was a lock box. Neither was that large, but that only made me all that much more curious. Each had locks. I found the key for them amongst the loot we had collected from the knights.

It took some doing to get the chief to let me look through the loot. Once I was doing so, I realized the knight captain’s armor was likely magical. The chieftain probably wanted it for himself and wasn’t inclined to share. That was fine. I just remembered to add selfishness to the list of ogre traits I knew about.

I nearly died laughing, though, when I saw their reaction to the loot inside those two lockboxes. One had a bag of gemstones. Everything from small pieces to emeralds the size of a man’s thumbnail. The pouch was nearly the size of a cantaloupe and had to be worth a few thousand gold pieces, at least. It was more money than I had ever possessed at any one time while I was playing Legends of Selmia.

Both the warriors scoffed at the gems and thought they were worthless. When neither of them seemed interested, I kept them for myself. I noticed Shemi eyeing me, but she seemed more interested in how I demonstrated the use of a key on the lock than on the actual gems.

The second lockbox held something even more interesting. This time, it was a large crystal. When the chief saw it, he simply turned and walked away. “Least little rocks pretty. That one is ooglie. You can keep Oogliefrank.”

Tulbat followed the chief. They were probably going to sleep. A day of raiding and then feasting, along with a little loot, was probably their perfect day. Now they would rest. The only difference between them and a human lord at this point was that they weren’t interested in bedding any of the female ogres. I still didn’t have a full understanding of their procreation process, but it seemed that they only did so at specified times and only to grow the village. I got the sense that it was whenever the “spirits” told Shemi they needed more ogres.

This time, even Shemi didn’t seem interested. She had gotten what she wanted, after all. The outcasts were starting to be treated differently. It might be hard to keep Kerkek on task leveling up the other outcasts, but with a few more shamans, the power of the tribe could grow. As soon as she stalked off to her hut, I let out a sigh.

I couldn’t believe my luck. If this was what I thought it was, it was a treasure worth far more than all the gems and the rest of the loot combined. It was just a rumor from my time as a player, but supposedly the noble NPCs had some secret techniques that allowed them to raise powerful pets that served their families.

If this is what I thought it was, then it was called an evolution crystal. I didn’t yet know how I would use it, but something that could change the very nature of a being was a powerful tool to have.