An earth-shattering roar filled the air as Yargul stood before the Mountain Ape, Yargul bellowing in reply. The ape grinned as it stared down on him, raising its fist to kill. Yargul grinned as well, summoning the Frostwolf’s ice scales and threw a punch, meeting the ape’s fist with his own. And then for the first time, Yargul was knocked back, tumbling backward. Ararys cried out with worry and fright wanting to rush over but Yargul raised a hand to stop her. If she came over now, she’d die and Yargul wasn’t keen on having his cook die. The ape looked curiously in her direction but Yargul’s roar drew its attention back on him, Yargul with the biggest grin on his face.
He began to laugh, yes, this was what he had been looking for! An opponent which was stronger than him, one that he could even die against! The ape cocked its head curiously, wondering if the little orc before it had gone mad. That wouldn’t be surprising, after all, the ape was one of the most powerful creatures on this mountain. Suddenly, Yargul darted forward and the ape casually swatted at him. This time, Yargul was prepared and threw another punch, except this one had all of his strength and momentum behind it. He managed to block the ape’s strike and continued onward, striking the ape in the face.
In terms of damage, this was insignificant but it did succeed in angering the great ape who decided that it was going to kill this little orc. It unleashed its oppressive magic aura, the immense power of the earth flowing to the aid of the one blessed by Agleon. This energy augmented the ape’s offense and defense as well as making it capable of manipulating the earth around it. If this mountain ape was several centuries older, it would also have the ability to make adamant armor, large plates of black stone covering its vitals. But even without the adamant, the ape was magnificent to behold, incredibly dense dark-grey stone plates covering itself instead.
Its fists in particular resembled boulders, jagged pieces of stone gathering at them to form two very fearsome weapons. If one were to compare these things with weapons of the mortal world, they would be the large boulders hurled from catapults and trebuchets, crushing anything unfortunate enough to be hit by them. It was already commendable for Yargul to have survived such a strike and even more so that he was able to barely deflect it with all of his strength. But that didn’t matter to Yargul, if he didn’t kill this ape then he was worth nothing.
After all, the strongest orc shouldn’t be defeated by some ape, that would be the greatest of insults. So Yargul just augmented his arms with his ice scales and prepared to meet the ape’s attack. The ape smirked as it saw the impudent orc prepare to meet its attack, this would be easy. It raised one fist and hammered it down with all of its strength, Yargul planting his feet firmly on the ground and tensing his right arm. When the ape’s fist hurtled down like a meteor, Yargul roared and put all of his might into his punch, the two attacks meeting with an explosion of raw energy.
The ape grunted as it quickly withdrew its wounded fist, the dense stone armor broken by Yargul’s ice scales. But Yargul had paid a steep price for that wound, his right arm had been completely shattered. If it wasn’t for the ice scales, he would have lost not only his arm but most of his upper torso. As it was, he was just barely able to stand, although that same wide grin was still on his face. It had been a while since he last felt pain so intense and he was relishing every moment of it.
He burst out laughing, much to the confusion and shock of the ape and Ararys, they both thought that he had gone crazy. Yargul then stopped, looking at the insurmountable opponent before him.
He said, “Perhaps I may die here but I will not have died without honor! You are a worthy opponent to die against so I shall now fight without care for my life!”
The ape lost its shock and confusion, it may not understand the language of orcs but it understood what Yargul meant. It narrowed its eyes and repaired the armor around its fist, preparing to squash this orc once and for all. Meanwhile, Yargul began to push his magic to the limit, the ice scales growing larger and sharper, resembling the Berserker Armor of the dwarves. Berserker Armor was not just items for defense, they themselves were weapons, the gauntlets, feet, knees, and elbows augmented with spikes while their scale-like armor possessed bladed-edges designed to rip and tear into flesh.
Yargul’s left arm was much the same, bladed-scales with tapered edges that would hook into flesh and tear off large chunks. Even with the ape’s stone armor, it was hesitant to attack Yargul. It would most certainly suffer damage just by attacking and against an opponent who no longer feared death, it may not survive this encounter. But it did not have too much time to think as Yargul charged, narrowly dodging an attack and striking the calf of its left leg. The strength of his strike combined with the momentum he had built up broke through the dense stone armor and his ice scales tore deep trenches into the ape’s flesh, halving the speed at which it could move.
It roared with anger and turned around, its fist catching Yargul in the side and turning him into a living projectile, Yargul body shooting three trees before his body finally stopped. This time, Yargul was noticeably wounded, four ribs had been shattered but luckily this was on his right side, meaning that he could still use his left. He then charged, dodging the sweeping attacks of the ape and ramming into its left leg, tearing out more flesh. This time, he was more careful and managed to roll before he was smashed into the ground, retreating so he could build momentum.
The ape by now was incensed, this insignificant insect had actually hurt it! This was an unforgivable offense! It roared but in that brief interval, Yargul attacked its left leg again, his ice scales tearing muscles and tendons. The ape’s leg was permanently crippled now but that did not mean it was finished, those deadly arms were still a threat that could not be ignored. Meanwhile, the ape had gone berserk, thrashing its arms around, deforming the terrain around it. Yargul stood off in the distance, taunting it to draw its attention to him and not Ararys. In the state it was in now, Ararys would most certainly die if it saw her.
That wouldn’t do, when Yargul killed the ape, he intended to eat it cooked, he wanted to relish the fruits of his victory. But he still needed to defeat the ape first so he charged out once more, but this time, his luck didn’t hold. The berserk ape saw him and with insanely fast reflexes, its fist shot out and hit Yargul directly in the chest, Yargul hurtling through the air. This time, Yargul did not get up and far away, in Otium the Surveyor took a look towards Yargul’s direction before sighing. It seems that his journey would end here, what a shame. In fact, it would be such a shame that the Surveyor was unwilling to let him die and so the Surveyor extended a piece of its consciousness to Yargul’s shadow, supplying him with a fraction of its power. After all, Yargul would soon be embroiled in orcish politics and war, if he died then it would miss this golden opportunity for learning.
Back at the base of Jagged-Tooth Mountain, the ape had forgotten about Yargul and was tending its wounds when it suddenly felt a strange and powerful energy. It immediately looked to Yargul who stood, his entire body covered in black ice armor, no longer resembling the scales of the Frostwolf. It looked more like traditional armor, the armor of the Ancient Orcs. Although orcs have remained relatively unchanging over the centuries, they too were a race that possessed a deep history and culture. Like the Saurians, they kept it alive in stories and myths and they spoke of a time when orcs could fight Premen on equal standing, especially the strongest of their warriors who could even wound Eversor himself.
The armor that Yargul wore now resembled the armor worn by those warriors, in fact, the very same which served to be the inspiration behind the Berserker Armor. The armor of the Ancient Orcs had only one thing in mind, pure offense. The only defensive capabilities this armor provided was that it was strong enough to survive through many battles without needing to be repaired, it wasn’t made to block attacks but to endure them so that the orc wearing it could kill whoever it was that dared to attack them.
Everything about the armor was a weapon, even the slightest contact would draw blood as the edges of the armor were razor-sharp. It did not only possess blades but also large spikes designed to pierce armor, hooks to rend flesh and extra plating on the feet and gauntlets to add weight behind their attacks. But this was hardly needed with the sheer amount of energy that flowed through Yargul’s body, each strike of his would be able to seriously wound the ape. Yargul immediately charged in and began to fight with the ape who turned berserk once more, its roars of anger soon turning into bellows of pain as its armor was easily broken by Yargul’s strikes.
It was only a matter of time before the ape fell down, its head quite literally blown to pieces. Yargul stood over its corpse and shouted in victory, looking magnificent in his black ice armor. But suddenly, that power of his disappeared, leaving him healed from his wounds. The Surveyor did not intend to give Yargul this great advantage, that would disrupt the experiment by too much, it was already bad enough that it had saved his life. Before it disappeared, it did leave a warning to Yargul, a whisper in the shadows.
“Those that rush die just as early. It would be a shame if you didn’t become the strongest orc because of your recklessness.”
This was the last time that the Surveyor would personally interfere, if Yargul died, then it would simply sigh and move on with life. And although Yargul was confused as to who this voice belonged too, he clearly understood what its words meant. It had saved him for some reason but it did not seem it could do so again. He was glum for a few moments, if he possessed the strength that came to him, he was sure that he could defeat the Orc King. But he soon shrugged it off, he now had a clearer picture of where he wanted his strength to be with a clearer goal, the clearer his path becomes.
He then turned to look at Ararys who was frozen, chuckling as he said, “Well? You can’t cook if you’re standing all the way over there.”
Ararys hurried over and helped Yargul prepare the ape for carrying, cutting the body into smaller chunks while Yargul defended her and the ape’s corpse from scavenging animals. These too were added to the eating pile and soon enough, animals just stopped coming, the thick scent of blood and death driving them off. Yargul sighed with relief and momentarily told Ararys to stop. He picked up two large pieces of the ape’s corpse and gestured for her to follow. He led her to the cave that he had stayed in and told her to stay inside while he brought the rest of the meat.
A good five hours were spent transporting the meat and another two were spent gathering wood for a fire. After all, they needed to cook all this meat otherwise it would spoil. In fact, they often leave much of the meat buried in the snow to prevent it from spoiling but even so, roughly a fifth of the meat had spoiled before they could cook it. But this wasn’t of huge concern, almost none of the ape’s meat had been wasted and with the amount of meat they had, it would easily tide them over for a month. And in that time, Yargul intended to hunt some more so they could probably last indefinitely.
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Yargul planned to stay on the Jagged-Tooth Mountain for as long as it took for his body to fully absorb the Mountain Ape’s magical bone marrow for the abilities that the Mountain Ape possessed were far superior to that of the Frostwolf King. Having learned from his experience with the Frostwolf King’s marrow, he decided to go slow, consuming a small amount of bone marrow at a time. Once more he felt terrible pain which frightened Ararys who did her best to care for him.
Two months passed in this manner, with Yargul taking small breaks of one day in between to recover enough to go hunt for enough meat to last him a week. Two months passed in an instant and as Yargul struggled to conquer the ape’s magic, the Surveyor prepared to meet its guests.
———
Off in the distant horizon, if one were to look from Otium’s walls he could see a small white dot grow ever larger. It was the White Dragon, her champion riding on her back as she flew towards Otium. Upon reaching Otium in record time, she unleashed an oppressive aura, intending to frighten the Master of Otium.
She roared, “Come out or I shall destroy this place!”
There was silence after her ultimatum and seeing that no one came out, she growled angrily and then breathed white dragonfire onto Otium. But her destructive flames were deflected by some invisible barrier. Incensed, she flew down and struck the barrier with all her might, cracks spreading throughout the barrier. She struck once more and the barrier shattered before her. With an arrogant snort, she flew down and landed heavily on one of the many buildings, expecting it to crumble under her weight. But this was incredibly dense stone, it would not be so easily destroyed. Angry, she destroyed it and proceeded to rampage, although she soon stopped when she realized that it took too much of her energy to do so.
But destroying some of these buildings had allowed her to release some of her anger and she suddenly saw a peculiarity, there was not a living soul in sight. She activated her dragonsight and did see a few living things but these were Austerians, not the one she was looking for. She ignored them and settled her eyes on the black Pyramid, noticing that her eyes were unable to see within. She guessed that this was where the Master of Otium lived and so she stormed towards it, summoning a ball of energy and shooting it towards the Pyramid. But much to her surprise, the Pyramid was unharmed after her attack which was capable of vaporizing mountains.
Taking this into consideration, she then opened her great jaws and began to condense white energy into a small sphere. More and more energy converged into the sphere and finally, she released it, an explosion that contained a thousandth of a collapsing star occurring on the face of Agleon. But when it had ended and one could see once more, the Pyramid stood, quite unharmed. The White Dragon was shocked, not even Night herself could withstand this attack, just what was this Pyramid made of to take the attack of a miniature nova as if it was nothing?
As she was about to attack the Pyramid again, a small black figure appeared in front of it, a Custodian.
“Cease hostilities or you shall be eliminated.”
She harrumphed and slashed with her forelimb, killing the Custodian in an instant. But two more appeared to replace it, each repeating the same message. She killed them too and suddenly, a great humming filled the air as the crystal atop the Pyramid began to glow brightly. It then fired, hitting the White Dragon directly in the chest. The force of the attack knocked her back, crushing a few more buildings but other than that, she was quite unharmed. Incensed, she prepared to destroy the crystal when she saw movement near the base of the Pyramid.
Her eyes saw the entrance of the Pyramid open and a figure step forward, dressed in simple silver and black robes, not too dissimilar from a Custodian. But the aura that the figure exuded was far different than the Custodians, it was too powerful and somewhat familiar. But the White Dragon ignored this, instead charging to kill him. This must be the Master of Otium and although he was powerful, he wasn’t strong enough to defeat her. But as she charged, the figure turned to look at her, a singular glowing eye greeting her eyes. Suddenly, a tremendously oppressive aura suddenly surrounded her, stopping her movements.
Paralyzed, she was helpless as the figure stepped closer and closer until it finally was seven feet from her snout.
It then said, “You must be the White Dragon.”
Using great effort, the White Dragon was able to hiss, “Yes, I am.”
She was tempted to retort but she decided to keep silent, she had realized too late that this was a being that she couldn’t afford to offend. But she would not apologize for her actions, her pride as a dragon prevented that.
As if reading her thoughts, the figure said, “You need not apologize, Dragon. It was partly my fault, I have forgotten that you dragons are prideful creatures. That said, I will let you off now but should you cause trouble again, I will not hesitate to kill you. Now, please wait for the moment until the other representatives arrive. You may avail yourself to the services of Otium.”
The oppressive aura disappeared and she nearly fell although she soon reasserted control over her body. The figure then turned, returning to the Pyramid.
Before he disappeared, the White Dragon asked, “Who are you?”
The figure stopped and turned to face her once more, saying, “I am the Librarian.”
The Librarian? The White Dragon did not remember such a being, this meant one of two things: the Librarian was far older than her and had hidden itself or it had recently arrived on Agleon. Both of these were troubling as both meant that it was an extremely strong being that could not be offended, she was already extremely lucky that it had chosen to do nothing now. She had better not push her luck. So she just told her champion to get off of her and then took a more convenient form for such a place, resembling an elf in her appearance.
She prepared to move out when a Custodian appeared, saying, “Please dress yourself, your nudity will cause unnecessary trouble.”
She looked down at her nude body and grew angry, about to strike down the Custodian as her body was her pride and joy, to not show it off was the greatest insult.
But she calmed herself down, finally saying, “I can’t, there aren’t any clothes for me to wear.”
The Custodian then created a plain white dress, holding it out to her.
“Wear this.”
Her eyes darkened but she still wore it, the white dress accentuating her figure rather than hiding it. She—despite herself—found that she quite liked it, although she still preferred going in the nude. But she still had her pride to uphold so with a huff, she turned and walked off into a random direction, her champion eyeing the Custodian suspiciously before following her. Meanwhile, the damage that she had wrought was slowly repairing itself, it was as if Time was reversing until the buildings were restored to their previous state. The White Dragon saw this and wasn’t too surprised, after all, this being was insanely powerful and something like restoration wasn’t beyond its capabilities.
A few more days passed and the White Dragon enjoyed herself in Otium, her previous anger towards the Librarian disappearing, replaced with awe. His accomplishments were nothing but god-like, perhaps he even was a god, one that was forgotten by the rest of the world. It certainly made sense, it would explain his absurd strength and Otium itself. But as she thought this, she heard the hum of energy as the defensive crystal towers began to light up, hundreds of Custodians suddenly appearing out of nowhere lining in perfect formation on the walls of Otium. Curious, she headed over to the wall and saw a massive orc fleet, lead by one ship that was superior in terms of size and quality to the other ships. At its prow stood the Orc King, the Blood-Eater held in his right hand.
He then pointed towards Otium and shouted, “Fire!”
Suddenly, a wave of magic projectiles shot forth from the boats, if it wasn’t for the danger they presented it would have been one of the most beautiful things one could see. But as the White Dragon expected, it had no effect, the attacks dissipating against the invisible barrier. Having confirmed the act of hostility, the crystal towers glowed brighter, preparing to fire but on some unspoken command, only one actually fired, a warning shot. It incinerated everything in its path, destroying a hundred of the fleet of two thousand.
The Orc King was shocked at the destruction just one of those towers had caused but before he could do anything, a floating figure suddenly appeared in front of him, a Custodian.
The Custodian warned, “Should you continue hostilities, you shall be exterminated. Choose wisely, Orc King.”
And just as it came, it disappeared, leaving the Orc King with his enraged retainers.
His retainers urged him to continue the attack but the Orc King just roared at them angrily, “Shut up! If we attack, all of us will die even me!”
Calmer now, he continued, “We can only go along with their demands.”
The other orcs were silent, they didn’t argue with the Orc King because they knew that he was far wiser than them and if he said that they couldn’t win, they couldn’t win. So they just peacefully docked onto Otium and followed their Custodian guides who led them to a section of Otium which had been converted for their use with large food stalls everywhere. Seeing it, the orcs began to eat, amazed by the fact that the food automatically reappeared to replace those that they had eaten. Soon, the orcs were gorging themselves on delicious food and were quite satisfied, only the Orc King uneasy. But he just decided to wait for now and eat some food, he couldn’t afford to offend the Master of Otium if his servants were this powerful.
After seeing the actions of these two most recent representatives, the Librarian wasn’t sure what to expect from the humans and elves of the Alliance but he needn’t worry, when they arrived a week later, they were very compliant and even offered to hand over their weapons. The Custodians treated them favorably and took them to see the Librarian immediately, other Custodians heading out to gather the other representatives. Soon, all were gathered before the entrance of the mysterious Pyramid, waiting for the doors to open. When it finally opened, they expected to see the Librarian but they only saw a stone golem who just looked at them emotionlessly before turning and walking into the depths of the Pyramid.
The Custodians didn’t move and so, they began to follow the golem who had stopped and looked back at them. Once they followed it, it just began to lead the way through the great Library of the Surveyor. There were many other golems like it who were working at the shelves of the Library, constantly pulling and placing books on various shelves. The golem kept walking forward and the others followed it while looking at their surroundings, the inside of the Pyramid seeming far larger than the outside suggested. In fact, they couldn’t see the opposite end of the Pyramid, something which unsettled them, as if they had stepped into a different dimension.
Suddenly, the golem stopped at what seemed to be the center of the Library, a large empty door frame greeting them. It was made of intricate black crystal, looking like the Gate of Death. All who looked upon it suddenly had a chill run down their spines, this was something that truly wasn’t of the mortal world. As they stared at it, the golem stood before it and lightly tapped its right foot, the empty door frame filling with a black void. The golem then stood to one side and gestured they enter but none did.
Finally, the White Dragon stepped forward, saying out loud, more to herself than anyone else, “I am not afraid!”
Her champion quickly followed and after him went the Orc King, his hand on his sword. The other representatives also followed after a slight hesitation. Once they all stepped through, the dark void disappeared and with its job finished, the golem returned to its previous duties.
The sight that greeted the White Dragon’s eyes amazed her, a circular garden filled with the most beautiful of flowers. As she looked around, her eyes finally settled on a familiar robed-figure, the Librarian. He was tending to a particular group of flowers which possessed petals of starlight and a jet-black stem with silver thorns. Behind her, the others soon arrived and they too looked in awe of their surroundings before locking their eyes onto the Librarian.
The Librarian then stood and turned to face them, his single silver glowing eye staring from the depths of his hood. He then waved a hand and the garden rearranged itself, opening a circular space in the middle. He then created a chair for him to sit down in and created ten chairs for the ambassadors.
He took a seat and gestured to the others, saying, “Please, take a seat.”