Original Stories Fan Fiction / Fables/Fairytales Fan Fiction ❯ Hallow Sins ❯ Orcs and loot ( Chapter 2 )

It was night time, but not a night like we spent in the caves, a night where we could see the stars splashed across the sky. there was a fire there too, but bigger, big enough that the smiles, laughter, movement and even the music could be seen clearly as day, shadows dancing along the edges of the small clearing, weaving in and out of the trees. Grant was well into conversation with Key as they roasted marshmallows and Mizu was dancing with a few other guests. I remember myself giving thanks, thanks to the fire that illuminated the joys of my sixteenth birthday.

 

`That was only 10 months ago…' was Brail's first conscious thought the next morning, although the only indication of time passing was that the fire was out now. The illumination in this dry cave now came from Key's spell. He had attempted to explain the mechanics to them but all they took from it was that it kind of filled the air with light, as if they were constantly followed by a high noon sun.

“Morning sleeping beauty,” Grant leered over him. “Get your ass in the air, time to go, I want out of this shit-hole today!” his grin changed to a more serious expression.

“Go? Thought I was supposed to take watch,” Brail asked, stretching the morning kinks out of his body.

“You were,” Grant snapped. “But Key and Mizu wanted you to rest, some bullshit about not wanting your wound to open up again,”

Brail shrugged, not arguing with an uninterrupted night's sleep. Quickly he gathered up his belongings, that being his gun, spare ammo, sleep mat and black throwing glove, everything else was packed up and ready to go.

 

“All clear,” Key called out, he and Mizu had already made their way back to the main tunnel. When they saw Brail they started moving forward, Mizu had marked the stone was with an arrow pointing the way they had headed before they had set camp. They continued in silence for about two minutes before stopping at a decline spiraling down, almost looking like stairs.

“These are manmade,” Mizu commented.

“More like goblinmade!” Key exclaimed.

“How'd you figure that?”

Key crouched down and pointed to an odd scratch in the wall, then pointed to an identical scratch on Grant's armor, where the dagger had tried to penetrate. He opened up his journal and quickly scribbled something in it. “Odd, they never show any sign of engineering before…”

“They were probably too busy inventing new way to look even uglier,” Grant descended downwards.

The new level was short; they walked along without incident, save the time they had to drag Key away from some ancient runes on one of the walls. Grant's temper was starting to flare, he had been forced to pull double watch after the attack last night and he wanted to get this job over with. The group made their way into a round crevice sort of room about 40 feet in diameter, and it wasn't until every one of them was inside it they detected the problem.

“What…the hell…is that,” Brail gasped. Its breathing was shallow, but the group could hear it all the way across the room, standing at least twice the size of Key (who was about 6' 3”). Only a loincloth hid its repulsive blue skin, threaded with purple veins, the disfigured head atop of its narrow shoulders looked as though it had been beaten with a bat once too often. It stood a little slacked, as if it was bored. A long slab of some unknown metal flowed from the two handed hilt it was holding, a 3 inch hook curved out of the top.

“What is that?” Mizu whispered.

“a-an orc,” Key stammered out.

“They said the toughest things we'd fine down here where goblins!” Brail hissed to them.

“Quiet, it hasn't seen us yet,” Grant whispered. It appeared to be true, the orc took no notice of them; in fact on closer inspection it appeared to be asleep, leaning on its hook club.

“Just back up slowly, let's get out of here,” Grant took a step behind him, his friends doing the same.

Key almost had a sense of fore-boding before he stepped on it. A rusty `click' was heard when a set of bars slammed down on the only entrance out of the room, the clang resonating on the bars seemed to mock them. Now they had two problems, their only avenue of escape was cut off, and the noise would behold them to a very grumpy orc.

The roar began almost as soon as the clang faded; the monster lifted up its weapon and stomped towards them with an eminence that seemed to choke the hope out of them.

“Let's go!” Grant howled, holding his battle axe in parallel to the orc's hook mace.

“Are you nuts? There's no way we can fight it!” Key shouted, terrified.

“We have no choice but to fight!”

Brail managed to get off two shots before the orc was upon them, Grant rose to meet the attacker, as un-flinched as the orc when the bullets hit it. Bringing his axe down in unison with the hook club, both where now locked in a power struggle. The two beasts wouldn't back down, Grant holding well against something more than twice his size and weight, but the orc shoved forward, breaking contact as the group's fighter stumbled back, barley bringing up his axe to block the blow. he felt the energy of Mizu's healing powers flow into him, with a monsterly cry to rival the orc's he pushed back, gaining them some ground, Brail firing shot after shot into it, but the orc seemed to absorb the bullets. Key then conjured fireballs to blast it with more effectiveness, allowing Grant to shove it back further.

Mizu ran around the battle behind the orc, it was too busy to notice her until she began to slash at the back of its right leg, at the back of the knee where the skin was thinner. This earned a moan of pain and a backhand that sent her skimming across the room. Grant pressed the momentary distraction to break and swing for the orc's neck, but it limped back, missing the blade by inches.

Key hurled a javelin comprised of ice at it, only to have it smashed into a thousand pieces by the orcs off hand. Still he smiled, Grant's courage drawing out his own.

“got ya,” making two quick gestures with his hand the ice fragments quivered, then zoomed towards the orc like a nest of angry hornets, imbedding themselves into its flesh. Each one was no more than a mosquito bite to the orc, but together the effect caused it to lose feeling in its left arm. Brail and Grant took the advantage to wail on it. Its skin was like hard leather, not giving easy to the bullets and axe strokes. once it regained the use of its arm it wasted no time punching Grant into a wall, only his armor saved him from becoming imbedded in it, he soon felt Mizu's healing taking care of the internal damage and bounced right back into the fray, screaming at the orc.

 

Brail circled around the orc and Grant, looking for a weakness, Key was pelting it with more fireballs, keeping from putting its full attention on his friends. Mizu kept Grant from passing out due to strain but also looked for an opening.

Then Brail noticed that every time the orc shifted, it was to put its weight on its left leg, Mizu's sneak attack had done some damage. Using his gloved hand he yanked free a set of bolas, three weighted balls connected by flexible barb wire. Spinning them in his hand to build up momentum, he launched them at the orcs legs, extracting a howl from the monster as they painfully wrapped around its damaged knee. Grant quickly caught onto its weakness and delivered a hammer blow to the leg, but it was like hitting a rock, in response the monster tried to smite him with an overhead bash that Grant sidestepped.

At the same time Key recognized the last point needed to bring down the orc, whispering his intentions in the archaic language, he shot a blue light from his outstretched palm, aimed at the orc's good foot. On contact it solidified the ground under it into a slick patch of ice. At the same time Grant hammered down on the bad leg with everything he could muster, screaming a battle cry as it connected. Since now the orc didn't have a firm hold of the ground thanks to the ice, it fell forward as its feet were smashed out from under it.

Grant didn't stop there, bringing his axe around counter clockwise just as Key knelt down and slammed the ground with his palm, shooting out a huge ice spike from the patch he had created. The orc impaled itself onto it just as Grant's axe came around and severed its head from its body, the blood stinging his eyes as it splashed onto him, a thick dark substance that spilt out of its wounds.

“Someone's going to die when we get back!” he cursed, not bothering to share the victory with his friends, instead picking up the hook mace. “Still, this'll net us a nice bonus,”

“Mind if I see?” Key inquired. Grant handed him the weapon, then laughed as it dragged him down almost comically. “Little help…?”

“Hey guys look!” Mizu exclaimed. At the end of the room, where the orc had been standing asleep was an old battered chest. About the same size as a foot locker, intricate designs where carved into the metal framework, their meaning even escaped Key.

“Sweet,” Brail started towards the loot and was promptly knocked aside by the blunt end of Grant's axe. “I'm the Leader, I'll open it,” he said in an almost twisted singsong voice.

`I don't remember appointing you…'came three annoyed thoughts. “Grant it's locked,” Key pointed out, struggling to heft the weapon in his hands. “You can't open it,”

“Sure I can, watch,” Grant shrugged, turned back to face the chest, and sliced the top off with his axe. Revealing gems and bit of metal that would make gold as valuable as plastic. The four of them gathered around to gaze at their long sought after treasure, but something caught Key's eye. A dirty brown book lay in the ruins of the lid, placing the hook mace against the side of the chest he curiously picked it up and gingerly opened it. A look inside showed him strange characters and symbols that he couldn't read yet, though judging by the diagrams he saw the contents where about magic, and began to get excited about it.

“Yo! Key!” Grant called him out of the entrancing pages of the book. “Come on, we still have to carry this all the way back,”

“What!? I'm not dragging anything though this cave!” Brail objected. “And we need to get though those bars…”

“You don't have too, I came prepared for this,” stowing away the book in his satchel Key pulled out a small vile of water.

“Isn't that the thing you dropped near the warp?” Mizu asked.

“It's its twin,” Key explained. “The two of them are connected, and if I invoke this with a spell, it'll create a mini-warp to where the other one is,”

“And since the other ones near the warp…” Grant's eyes lit up.

“..We can head home with the loot, today,” he announced proudly. Not wasting any more time Key muttered a chant, as he did the water began to twinkle a bright white. Slowly he undid the cap and let it slide out, instead of falling to the ground it simply hung there.

 

Then it started to spin, the ball spun until it formed a disk, and that disk expanded until it touched the ground, about 7 feet in diameter. The white glow disappeared and they saw the cave entrance, though a more appropriate term would be a `dead end' with a thin silver circle imbedded into the wall. Key walked forward as if the entrance was simply two feet away, motioning for his friends to follow.

Grant and Brail carried the treasure while Mizu hauled the hook mace.

“You know, I honestly didn't think you'd last this long,” Grant told her. “Figured you'd call it quits, but you stuck by us,”

“Someone's gotta cover you,” came the response. “Adventure, magic, its dream come true for a girl like me,”

Key entered a code in the keypad next to the warp frame, bringing the machine to life. Bolts of electricity criss-crossed the frame, until in a brilliant flash of light filled their eye's with purple and yellow flares. The warp solidified, looking like a pool of water on its side, the image within was distorted lights and figures. Stepping aside Key allowed Grant and Brail to go first, carrying their loot.

“I still find it hard to believe all this,” he sighed.

Mizu approached the warp, weapon in hand. “I've been waiting for this my whole life,” she stepped though.