Bob stood tall at an impressive six-foot-eight or roughly two meters (if that’s your thing). His skin was a healthy deep green of well-watered grass. The tusks that protruded from his mouth were mostly intact, with a few chips. Those chips were from an ill-advised dare to be rude to a female human warrior (another story for another day). Bob was selected to be the war party’s leader. It was by far a good choice since Bob was the smartest of the group. He could count to twenty and didn’t need to take off his boots.

Bob’s chief, Richard, had sent Bob and his crew to wait at the main road and rob any travelers. This was sometimes a dangerous venture but could, on rare occasions, have a high reward. 

Bob hated waiting. He sat in some bushes near the road and pondered. There was only so much time an orc could nap as the other three were doing. The rest of the time was spent waiting quietly, another challenging activity for an orc. Then an idea formed in Bob’s mind.

“Hey, Steve,” Bob said, waking the orc next to him. Steve looked at Bob, yawning. “What did we do with that meat the last humans had?” Steve pointed at the chest behind them.

Bob opened the chest and removed the large hunk of sliced meat. Bob had seen this meat once before when they raided a camp. The humans put the meat in a metal pan over a fire, creating a nice aroma that appeared to have the power to attract other humans.

“Steve, get that round metal thing. Ben, Betty, gather some firewood and make a campfire.” Bob ordered

Ben, who was a female orc, looked to her twin Betty who was a male orc. The shaman had lost track of who was who during the naming ceremony and named them wrong. Ben and Betty slowly rose and began looking for twigs and pieces of wood.

“Bob, wouldn’t a fire be bad? The humans would see it.” Steve said as he rummaged through a pile of discarded trash, looking for the round metal thing.

Bob glared at Steve, “You can only count to five. I’m the smart one. We are going to make a trap for humans.”

Steve shrugged. Bob was the leader. He held the round metal pan up, “Got it, boss.”

Ben and Betty had returned and began working on the campfire. Bob grabbed another oddity from the pile. It was a metal tray with legs, but the top had long holes. He remembered that the humans had put this over the fire to place the round metal pan on.

Once everything was set up, and the fire had the pan hot, Bob put the first pieces of meat on the pan. The aroma of the meat began to spread out. After a few burns trying to flip the meat with their fingers, they finally figured out how to use their daggers.

The first batch was laid out on some tanned skins. Without knowing it, the orcs had made their first batch of meat perfect. Not too crispy, firm with some give. If Bob’s plan worked, humans would start to flock to them. They could rob them and maybe give them a piece of meat to ease their pain of being robbed.

“What smells so good?” A small voice came from behind Bob.

Bob looked back and down at a small grayish imp. “This is human bait. It attracts humans.” Bob said, “Now go away.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“It smells so good. Can I have some?” The imp said.

“No, this is our human bait. We are going to rob them.” Bob shouted.

“Rob? I have some gold. I will give it to you for some human bait.” The imp said, handing out a small gold coin.

Bob counted, then counted again. This was easier than robbing humans. He took the gold coin and gave the imp three pieces of human bait.

The imp greedily ate the human bait and hummed as if it was the most incredible food he had ever eaten. It may have been since imps mostly rely on roots, berries, and small rodents.

Steve asked, “Bob, why did you give our human bait away?”

Bob held up the gold coin, “Because the imp gave me a coin for it. Much easier than robbing humans.”

Betty and Ben kept frying the human bait. They didn’t know how much to do, so they kept going. Bob watched the road waiting for the humans to come stampeding toward them. A noise behind him made him jump.

It was another imp. This four-foot (one-meter-ish) creature held out a gold coin. Bob looked at the coin, took it, and gave the imp three slices of human bait. Like the last, it devoured the bait as if it was the most incredible meal it had ever had.

Soon more imps showed up. Bob looked at them and shouted, “Line up. One gold coin for three pieces of human bait.” The imps formed a line with little difficulty.

One imp in the middle of the line raised his hand. Bob pointed at him, and he asked, “I only have a piece of silver.”

Bob counted again, then shouted, “One silver for one slice of human bait. One gold for three slices.” Most of the imps cheered.

“What if we have none?” an Imp in the back cried out.

Bob looked at the group of imps. It seemed to have grown double in size. Bob counted and counted again. “Bring what you have, and I will barter. Weapons, gems, gold, silver, and anything of value!” The imps cheered.

Soon the chest was lined with silver, gold, and other valuable things. The imps’ group finally started dwindling as the human bait began running out. Bob was happy. He was afraid they were going to have to fight an imp horde.

The last imp got the last slice of human bait. As it chowed down on it, it asked, “Will you be here tomorrow?”

Bob thought for a moment and said, “No, we are out of human bait.”

The imp said, “Why not buy more from the humans. We trade with the village down the way. They may have more.”

Bob counted and counted again. Humans didn’t like orcs, and orcs didn’t like humans, but this was easier than robbing humans. Bob looked sternly at the imp, “Could you buy us more human bait?”

The imp nodded.

“I am Bob, leader of this war party. I will give you gold to get more human bait, but if you don’t return, we will hunt you down and raid your village.” Bob said, standing as tall as he could to be as intimidating as he could be for the small imp.

“I am Rick, and I will be happy to get you more human bait in exchange for six pieces tomorrow.” Rick the imp was proud of his negotiation skills.

To the horror of the other orcs, Bob gave him the gold coins. The imp left as fast as he could.

Later that night, the orcs sat around the campfire. None of them had tried the human bait, and they were all hungry. They were also angry at Bob for giving away their gold. The grumblings stopped when they heard a cart coming down the road.

All of the orcs grabbed their weapons and rushed the road. At least they will get to rob someone!

Rick shouted from the cart, “It’s me, Rick! I have human bait!”

Bob smiled a big toothy grin at the other orcs. He showed them he was the smartest. The imp brought the wagon and small pony to the camp.

Rick jumped down from the cart, “I had to buy a cart and pony to bring back the bait.” He swept back the cover of the wagon to reveal what appeared to be five times more human bait than the orcs had originally stolen.

Bob counted and then counted again. He couldn’t count high enough. But he knew they were going to make a lot more gold tomorrow. Bob gave a cheer that confused the other orcs, but they soon didn’t care and cheered as well.

“This human bait will make us lots more gold and maybe bring us humans, too!” Bob shouted. The others finally understood and cheered some more.

Ben said, “Human bait sounds like a terrible name. We need to call it something else.”

Rick stood on the back of the wagon and said,” The humans call it bacon.”

The orcs looked at each other and then shouted, “Bacon!”