Nash Alta
Adventurer Level: 8
Orc - Nulevan
"So you two woke it up!?" Chief Gluhern shouted.
"No sir!" I lied.
"We were simply guessing at what he could be when he woke up all on his own," Yulk lied. "We had a short discussion with him, had Catalina grab him some food, and came immediately here to inform you, sir."
The chief eyed us suspiciously. He knows we're lying, but he also knows that he can't prove it. Yulk and I will cover each other until our dying breath, and it's not like the human can tell on us. If the chief can't prove it, he can't openly punish us without people getting mad about injustice. Then he'll have to listen to speech after speech after speech. A much worse punishment than whatever he'd give us.
Which means that he'll probably resort to underhanded punishments. I fully expect to be voluntold to do some extra chores this week. A shame, Yulk and I really wanted to go back into the dungeon and look for clues about the human. Maybe we should've left it alone after all.
"Smells like bullshit to me, but I'm assuming there's no witnesses?" Gluhern said as he looked around. After a few shaken heads he turned back to us, "There never are with you two. So, it calls itself a human, then?"
"He, sir. And yes, he says he's a human. Not that it helps," Yulk said, dodging a thrown cup.
"DON'T CORRECT ME, SORCERER!" Gluhern shouted.
"Sir, did the others find anything related to the human?" I asked, attempting to distract him from his rage.
The chief drew a deep breath and said, "Actually, no. Your team still hasn't returned. We're sending a rescue party at sunrise."
My blood ran cold. Blune, Graz, Inoris, and Rezgal were pretty tough guys. Almost as tough as me. Party wipes weren't exactly uncommon, but they don't happen to adventurers over level five very often. Those four are level 7, so they should be able to handle just about anything. What the hell's going on?
"I'd like to join the rescuers," I said.
"Me too, sir," Yulk added.
"I'm afraid not," Gluhern said, no longer angry. "You're both under-leveled for the rescue party. Since they're over level five, we're sending the over-tens. You'll be liabilities."
I gnashed my teeth in frustration, but chief isn't wrong. Reaching level ten is an enormous accomplishment, and the difference in power between a level nine and ten is extreme. The downside to reaching that rank was all of the extra responsibility that came with it. Most over-tens go into mercenary work, leaving their homes behind. If they don't, they'll quickly get swamped with work that the other adventurers can't handle.
"Aren't they busy?" Yulk asked.
"Alurn and Kirisaka accomplished their task in the wastes, and they're back. Rirnu and Pakin haven't been doing much, as there aren't many wounded. Two medics, a tank, and a rogue. The perfect rescue party," Gluhern replied with a grin.
"Pakin isn't a medic, she's a necromancer," I replied with distaste.
"That's just a late medic, if you think about it," Yulk said cheerily. "Plus she knows combat magic as well."
"Yeah, well she'd better be on time," I grumbled. "Blune owes me a drink, and zombies don't pay their debts."
"Do skeletons?" Yulk asked.
"How the hell should I know?"
"Well how do you know that zombies don't, then?"
"ENOUGH!" shouted the chief. "The matter of the rescue party is settled. The only matter I have left to discuss with you is your next task."
Yulk and I stared at the grinning chief with stalwart expressions. We knew he wouldn't dare officially punish us, but there was a certain level of unease regarding the underhanded task he would give us. He won't be sending us into the dungeon, he knows we'll join the rescue party. There's a possibility that he'll send us into the wastes on retrieval duty, though. The damned herbs that go into medi-potions love that sandy shithole.
"You'll guard the human until I say otherwise. One set of eyes on it at all times," Gluhern said, chuckling as my face fell. "I'll leave it up to you to decide the shifts. If you wander off, I'll have your hides."
"DIBS ON FIRST SHIFT!" Yulk shouted unexpectedly.
I turned to my brother and was shocked to see him nearly bouncing with excitement. Guard duty is the most boring task available, and just about any orc worth their salt will do anything to avoid it. I looked back to the chief, who shared my expression of shock.
"Why are you so excited?" I asked.
"No reason!" Yulk said, suddenly nervous. "Let's go!"
He grabbed me and began dragging me out of the room just as the chief was having second thoughts about our new assignment. I struggled a bit, but Yulk has a remarkably tight grip for a sorcerer. I watched the chief shrug as we left the room.
"What the hell's got into you?" I asked as I finally shook his grip.
"Nash! We get to study the human!" Yulk said, actually bouncing up and down this time. "We might be the only ones who've ever met one!"
"Okay, okay," I said with a sigh. "I see your point. It IS kinda cool."
"I can't wait! I wonder if he has any magic resistances..."
"That pink skin it has doesn't look like it's any tougher than ours. Be careful, brother," I cautioned.
I wasn't able to tell if he heard my warning or not because he immediately started mumbling to himself and walking towards the hospital. I sighed as I followed after him. He'd always been like this. Something strikes his fancy and he becomes unable to think of anything else until he's figured it out. Even if the chief hadn't tasked us with guard duty, Yulk probably would've ended up hanging around the human's room.
"Hey, Nash! Wait up," a familiar voice called out to me.
I turned and saw a larger than life figure wearing full blackened plate armor and carrying a sword that was nearly as long as I am tall. I grabbed Yulk's arm to stop him from wondering off and nodded at the figure as it approached.
"Hello Alurn, I hope the day finds you well. What can I do for you?" I asked him.
"I wanted to ask you about the rescue mission," Alurn replied. "Would you mind answering a few questions for us?"
Us?
"I have apprised him of the likelihood that you know nothing other than what we've already been told," a voice said from behind me.
I suppressed my urge to swing around. No need to. I already knew who it was. There isn't anyone else in the village that could sneak up on me, and he did so as often as he could.
"Hello Kirisaka," I said as I calmly turned to face him.
Kirisaka is shorter than most orcs, but nobody has pointed that out to him since he was a child. There was a coldness in his eyes that would unnerve a drake. He's only a rogue in the sense that he knows how to avoid traps and pass through locks. His specialty in combat is quick, silent movement and striking vital areas with enough force to obliterate plate armor. The reason that everyone confuses his class is that he's the only shadow warrior in the village, and he doesn't bother correcting people who get it wrong.
I glanced at his short-swords. I prefer an axe, but I wouldn't complain if I had to use those babies. They were simple but elegant, double edged with an exaggerated point and pommels designed after the sun and the moon. Kirisaka had received them as a reward for saving a wealthy elven family in the wastes.
"How much?" I asked.
"They are still not for sale. They shall never be for sale. Stop asking," Kirisaka replied tersely.
"I'll give you twenty gold. Ten each," I said.
"You do not have twenty gold," he countered.
"I'll borrow it and pay it off by killing things in the dungeons with those swords."
"No you shall not, because I will not be selling them."
"Pardon me," Alurn interrupted. "Time is of the essence. Nash, your party went to explore the part of the dungeon that was revealed by the collapsed wall. You were gone for a day before you exited. Did you encounter any enemies?"
"No," I sighed. "We didn't even see any traces of monster activity. It was eerily quiet."
"How, then, did you become separated?" Kirisaka asked, annoyed that he'd been wrong. Or that I kept looking at his swords.
"The strap on my pack came loose, and I stopped to fix it. They didn't want to stop, so they kept going," I explained. "I fixed my pack and ran after them, but there was a fork in the path. There weren't any footprints or markers and I decided to go left, but I guess they went right. I ended up in a sort of labyrinth and that's when I found the human."
"Human?" Alurn asked. "Oh, the thing you found in the dungeon. How do you know what it's called?"
"It woke up!" Yulk said excitedly.
"I-I see," Alurn stuttered, caught off-guard by Yulk's demeanor. "Well... Nash, did you see or hear anything odd on your way out? Any clue to what might have kept them from returning?"
"When I picked up the human, I was teleported to the entrance of the dungeon with it still in my arms. I didn't even know the rest of the team was still in there until chief told me just a few minutes ago," I said. "It's been a couple days. They definitely should've been back by now."
"I understand. We'll find them, Nash. Don't worry too much," Alurn said.
"Let us begin our rescue," Kirisaka said.
Alurn nodded and they went on their way. Yulk and I continued on our way to guard the human. When we entered the hospital building, there were three girls peeking through the door into the human's room. Maybe the chief had a point assigning us as guards.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
The girls jumped back, falling over each other in the process. The first girl who managed to stand back up was Catalina, the one we'd asked to bring food to the human.
"We're just curious!" she said.
"Yeah," Yini said from the ground. "We wanted to see the new pet."
"Pets don't talk," Yulk said. "Pets are for petting, that's why they're called pets."
Yini scowled for a moment before she realized it was Yulk that was talking to her. Then her face softened. It's obvious to everyone except Yulk that Yini fancies him. My brother is smart, but he's dumb in his own way.
"You're right, I just..."
"It's so cute!" Nimora interrupted. "Are you sure you found it in the dungeon?"
"Yes, I'm sure," I said sternly. "And because of that, it may be dangerous. Keep your distance."
"We can handle ourselves," Catalina said, pretending like she hadn't been cowering when we asked her to feed it. "It's pretty small."
"It's short, but it's also muscular. I get the feeling that it's stronger than it looks. But even if you could fight it, chief would get mad at you for putting yourselves in the situation to fight it. Especially if you killed it before we found out more about it," I replied.
"Yeah, yeah. Is it some kind of elf?" Yini asked.
"Maybe, but it calls itself a human," Yulk replied excitedly. "It may be an offshoot species of elf. Or maybe an ancestor of the elves! We don't know how long it was in that dungeon for."
"Did it eat?" I asked.
"Y-yes. I'm pretty sure. The platter looks empty," Catalina said.
"So you didn't retrieve the platter?" I asked smugly.
"N-no! It's sleeping. I didn't want to wake it up," she replied defensively.
"Damn it all. Sleeping again," Yulk said with disappointment. "Oh well, at least that confirms it's carnivorous like us and not herbivorous like the elves."
"So maybe it's not related to the elves?" Yini asked.
"Maybe not. Maybe it's related to orcs. We did find it in the orc dungeon, after all."
"We? I found it. Stop trying to take credit for my find," I said teasingly.
"Yes, yes. You found it. Anyways, if it's an ancestor of the orcs then it's probably much stronger than it looks. So Nash is right, you three should be careful," Yulk said.
The three girls looked crestfallen. Hearing it from me was one thing. I'm a bit dumb so they don't think I know what I'm talking about. They always listen to Yulk, though. He's probably the smartest orc in the village, even though he's dumb when it comes to women. Poor Yini, she's got an uphill battle in the fight for his affection.
"Okay," Yini finally said. "We'll go. Sorry."
"No need for apologies if you don't do it again," Yulk said cheerily. "Plus it'll be safer with Nash and I guarding him."
"It's a him?" Nimora asked.
"Don't even think about it," I told her.
"I'm NOT!" she said.
"Then how'd you know what I'm talking about?" I asked.
"Shut up!"
Nimora always had an eye for odd ones. She frequently flirts with the non-orc traders that pass through. They politely flirt back, but not a single one of them will ever take her up on the offer. It's not very common for other species to interbreed, at least in my experience, but orcs cannot breed with other species. Trying to can be fatal.
"Well, we should get back to our duties," Catalina said.
"Agreed," I replied tersely.
The girls left, and we entered the room quietly. I checked the platter, the human had ate and drank everything on offer. I took a moment to study his features. He had a few scars on his face, which was kind of cool. His black hair was cut short in a way I'd never seen before. If I had to guess his height, I'd say somewhere around 5'10". About as short as the girls, but something about him told me that he's like Kirisaka.
I can't quite put my finger on why, but I feel like he's dangerous.