III-49 Leveling

Alright, boys and girls. A lesson against fast-healing adversaries. You're going to run into them, and some of you, if you're lucky, are going to develop a skill that will allow you to heal much faster.

When you face someone like that, use fire. Use fire.

Now, some other instructors might advise that you use acid. That could work. Just one problem. How many of you keep acid on you? How many of you are Biomancers, specifically specializing in flesh-melting acid? Yeah, that's what I thought.

Additionally, you're probably facing a Biomancer or someone Biomancer-adjacent if they can heal so fast. So when you use an acid, they likely know the specific compound of its composition better than you do. However, that works.

Why am I so against acid? Because once upon a time, a certain young Sergeant Irons threw a vial of acid at a Biomancer. And as it crashed against her, it splashed off like water as she laughed at me and gave me a series of fast-acting tumors. As I lay dying, she walked over to mock me, telling me that she turned its specific composition into a neutralized substance. And while she gloated, a Pyromantically-charged artillery shell hit us both.

I had the toughness and the armor to survive. She didn't. Well, she survived for a bit.

But the flames? A little bit of advice when you're burning to death. Put it out or put yourself down. Burning to death is no way to go.

Anyway. With that happy bit of advice administered, get back into your squads and pin that adolescent hydra down. No fire for you kids today. You get to learn the fun of trying to beat down a regenerator head on.

-Captain Harry Irons, TacStrat 101, Phoenix Academy

III-49

Leveling

Adam stared into the Tutorial Gateway and drew a long and deep breath as he took a moment for himself. It had been a day and a half since they left Shiv there. Almost two days of preparing, of rebuilding, of intelligence gathering, and of reinforcing. Parts of the gate had been restructured. The casualties at the Surface District were still being treated. And certain threats had been issued by one Inquisition Sijik, who now promised Master-Advisor Oldsmith with damnation and imprisonment.

A promise he said he would personally deliver upon Oldsmith in but three days.

The Gate Lord had left the Surface Gateway. He observed Blackedge from afar and found the Necrotechs more passive than before, doing little more than intermittent bombardments. Then, the Gate Lord projected his senses toward Fortress-City Diego and encountered the inquisitorial forces halfway through.

They likely numbered around two thousand. Two thousand mostly High Adept and Low Master Pathbearers. All of them bore the insignia of the Inquisition, and they were moving fast. Adam guessed they would be at the gate in less than another day or so.

Too bad for them, they were likely going to be marching into the jaws of oblivion.

And too bad for Adam, said jaws of oblivion were the orcs.

“Gods,” Adam breathed. “Starhawk. Hear me. I really, really would like a more reliable army. And a few minutes just to breathe.” There came no answer. “I haven’t even gotten to rename this damned gate yet. Or the tower. Or anything. Not a single moment between all these problems. I can’t believe I ever thought being system favored was good.”

Then, Adam thought about Blackedge again and pushed his mental exhaustion away.

"Come on, Adam," Adam chided himself. “Your father has been fighting for weeks straight. Weeks. You have so many people supporting you. Shiv’s literally occupying the orcs attention by himself so they wouldn’t do anything to you or the people in the gate. Get yourself together. Stop being a coward. The orcs are the only ones that can help you save Blackedge. The only… Oh, for the love of—orcs. My army is made of three million orcs. Ascendants, what is my life.”

Look behind him and grimaced at the thick, alloyed door. It was sealed from the other side. Only to be opened once his identity was vetted—and Uva ensured he wasn’t mind controlled. And speaking of Uva, she was practically the only person who could come in and out of the damned checkpoints just by squeezing herself between the cracks. And she still wanted more defenses for the bunker. Because the orcs unnerved her that much, too.

Adam couldn’t blame her.

The entire reason why the Vulketh breach happened was because of one of the orcs, a power play on their part, to deliberately force Shiv's hand to accelerate the ritual. And these were to be his allies. This was the main army he was expected to lead. No, not lead, just point. Point in the general direction of his adversaries and let them run amok. Adam didn't think he could lead the orcs anyway. 

That was likely Shiv’s job. Or maybe he was just there to keep their attention. 

And Adam pitied the Deathless for that. He knew the orcs were bad, cruel, psychotic creatures. But during his brief time with them, they'd seemed so... well, he would even call them charming, interesting. Their Social Skills influenced even him. But beyond their skills was an ever-present urge to hurt, to dominate, to inflict harm on both mind, body, and soul. 

And then there was Band, that orc which had a connection to Adam's mother, that orc that Shiv broke so brutally. Adam watched the orc die with a joyous smile on his face. The orc's soul was mutilated as well, but never once did he beg, never once did he truly even whimper. And that was the greatest difference between orc and human. Even when they were scared, they still loved it. All of it. The struggle, the strife, the misery, the loss, all of it.

"Adam," Uva's voice sounded in the back of his mind.

The Gate Lord shuddered, but then calmed. "Yes, yes, I'm going across right now. I just, I needed a moment to—"

"Take your time. I am not rushing you," Uva said, her voice soft. She infused him with a dose of calmness, but also alarm. Adam shook as his anxiety rose, but slightly transformed. He wasn't worried anymore. Rather, he was alert, waiting to intercept something, prepared to engage.

"What was that for?" Adam asked.

"That's to help you in case there is an ambush on the other side. You never know what they're like. There is always an undercurrent of malice and violence from their minds. Shiv wasn't lying about the itch. It is hard to resist. It makes you want to hurt something. It took more than a bit of focus to remove the urge from myself.”

"And now I don't want to cross over again," Adam said, but he had to. Someone needed to brief these bloody orcs, and it was going to be him. He had been interfacing with Inquisitor Sijik. He was the one who knew the key Necrotech observation posts and defenses all across Lost Angeles. More importantly, he was the one who was going to lead the rescue efforts for Blackedge. He was going be at the front of this fight, and so he would need to greet his army eventually.

There was no way he was going to let a group of orcs run amok in his hometown. That would likely be as brutal a massacre as simply letting the Necrotechs breach its walls and put his people to the flame.

"Maybe not as bad," Adam whispered to himself. "Still. I can’t trust them. And I need to have their measure.”

“Lean on Shiv if you need to,” Uva said. “You know you can count on him.”

“I think I count on the big bastard a bit too much,” Adam replied.

“There is no too much with him,” she insisted. “And it will be good for him as well. If he spends too long with the orcs, I worry how that might affect his mind. We ground him.”

“Right,” Adam said. “Good for him too. Well. Time to cross.”

“Don’t worry. I will be with you. I will make sure your mind remains untampered and your person untouched.”

With a final breath, Adam stepped into the dimensional gateway. He clutched his spell string tight and tapped the wand on his hip. It was potent with Hydromancy, potent and capable of letting him shift his physical form briefly into a splash of water if the orcs expected easy prey. More than that, if they tried to cast anything—

A thunderous blast shook the air. As soon as Adam arrived on the other side, he was launched off his feet and flung down that mountain of—

Adam crashed shoulder first against an edge. He realized the corpses making up the mountain were all gone. Rather, he was landing on a series of stone steps, his legendary plate chipping the rough edges as he bounced down the long flight of stairs. He manifested his vector-wings and hovered up into the air, recovering. As he shook his head, trying to get his bearings, he drew a Veilpiercer and saw a massive encampment sprawling out all around him.

A few million orcs had set up large tents and started fires as they gathered her. Stone fortresses, bunkers, and fighting rings had been set up as well. It looked like a crude forward operating base. And that’s what it was. A forward operating base right outside his gate.

“Shit,” Adam muttered.

Furthermore, the mountain of corpses that once stood as the foundation of the gateway was gone. Instead, something akin to a ziggurat remained in its place. And that was when Adam realized it was likely always a ziggurat. It was just that the orcs placed all the bodies there to demoralize him. 

"Bastard creatures," Adam muttered under his breath.

As he took in the orc encampments, he saw most of them were standing outside, gathered around large fireplaces, but they were waving gleaming pieces of metal in their hands. It looked like mithril. It gleamed like mithril. It was mithril. Why were they waving mithril around? Were they betting on something?

He got his answer when a faint silhouette shot overhead, tearing through parted clouds. Adam's eyes widened as he watched a bone armored figure shoot further and further into the distance, away from the Court Leviathan parked just two kilometers away from the gateway. Shiv spiked his gravitic field and righted himself. He came accelerating back the way he was flung, and a collective cheer went up among the orcs.

“Smash! Smash! Smash!” some of them cheered.

“Bonk! Bonk! Bonk!” Others cried

“Shiv! Shiv! Shiv!” More called out.

“What in damnation is happening here,” Adam breathed.

Adam cast his awareness up into the air just as Uva asked him the very same question. "What is happening?"

"I have no bloody idea," Adam said with a sigh. "I came through, and a blast knocked me down."

Just as his Seer of Horizons snapped into place, granting him a panoramic view of the land, he watched as Shiv charged a large orc standing atop the Court Leviathan. The orc held a strange weapon. It was a club that resembled a mass of tumors, but its texture was familiar to Adam. He remembered seeing that somewhere. Was that bone adamantine? And wood? What kind of weapon was that.

Shiv blurred across the air just as the orc swung his massive club. Adam's breath got stuck in his throat as he watched the orc smash his weapon full force into Shiv's skull. His weapon vibrated like a gong, and the vibrations shifted over into Shiv’s shaking head. The world went still for a moment. Then, The Deathless was blasted across the sky again. 

A massive shockwave splashed out from the Court Leviathan, spreading far. It washed over the encampments; the flames lighting the camps shivered and danced. Adam had to accelerate his vector wings to avoid being flung off his feet.

Adam cast his awareness after Shiv, just as he prepared to loose a Veilpiercer at the large orc atop the leviathan. Adam hesitated, however, due to two factors. The first was the fact that he was surrounded by a few million orcs, and that if he shot his arrow right now, he was very likely to be swarmed by them. 

The other thing was Shiv's bone armor. There was something wrong with it. Parts of it had cracked away, but it trailed blood for some reason, and before he could assume Shiv was the one who was injured, the bone armor knitted itself back together. Missing sections healed. Veins of biomass extended outward and grew over absences inflicted upon the plating. The armor was regenerating. And it looked strangely scaly too. A bit like a basilisk’s scales.

“What is happening?” Uva asked.

“I…” Adam stared on in confusion,  as Shiv spiked his gravitic field once more. The air around him shivered, his inertial sheath thundered with kinetic energy. He shot toward the orc, accelerating faster and faster until he passed through the clouds shredded earlier like a descending meteor. As the Deathless got closer, Adam could hear him laughing. He could also hear something filling up in Shiv's lungs.

“Alright, you shit!” Shiv roared. “Give it your best shot!”

“Oh, I will!” The orc replied. “Don’t you worry.”

Adam scoffed and shook his head in disbelief. “I think… I think Shiv’s letting the orc hit him.”

Uva let out a groan. “Why?”

Adam winced. “Leveling.”

“Composer, that man… Ah. I suppose I should have expected this.”

***

Adamantine Adaption 167 > 168

Shiv accelerated toward Bonk with feral glee in his heart and every intention of achieving a brutal death. The Heroic-Tier orc hit hard, at least as hard as the Recollector wearing Confriga's body. It wasn't just because the orc had a staggeringly impressive Physicality Skill—a skill that somehow let him build up impact charges from all the hits he inflicted on Shiv before. 

In a weird way, it was a little bit like having a weirder version of momentum core but for Physicality. The orc wasn't focused on lifting or overpowering. He was focused on building up to one resonating hit. A hit that was made stronger by all the preceding hits. The orcs force had gone from additive, to multiplicative to exponential. Now. Shiv was about to see how bad the next blow hurt.

To put Bonk’s Physicality Skill simply, every time he hit Shiv, the damage was amplified astronomically.

Last time, he shattered the Deathless's armor. This time…

“See if you can finish me off this time,” Shiv snarled as he tore through the screaming air, approaching the orc fast. Shiv’s heart was pounding, his organs were squirming and shriveling as his metabolic health collapsed entirely. Death was close. One way or another, Shiv wasn't going to be alive in a few minutes. And to be honest, he preferred his death come at the hand of the orc rather than his own mistake in Biomancy.

As he charged Bonk, he heard a deafening chorus of approval echoing from all directions. The gathered orcs were overjoyed. They pumped their fists high and called out to him, roaring his title as if he was some kind of celebrity. And once more it was getting to Shiv, though he guarded his heart more than before. He spiked himself over 20 more times as he got within 200 meters of Bonk. The court leviathan responded to his approach by rapidly shapeshifting. He saw its outer shell harden as a layer of bone adamantine, harvested from one of his old bodies, swept across its exterior.

Shiv came at Bond just under combustion speeds. Bonk swung his cancer-forged club without hesitation, and the Deathless didn't even bother blocking. He took the hit head-on, and this time, the strike blasted clean through his skull. His Adamantine Adaption tried to resist, but the impact was simply too much. 

And once more, Bonk’s skill surprised him. Rather than a colossal explosion signaling Shiv's end, the force resonating within him, the force that Bonk unleashed over and over simply mashed Shiv's body into paste, but kept the damage entirely focused. No shockwaves followed. No overflow of destruction devastated the world. It wasn’t like Shiv’s Inertial Overdrive at all.

That was another indication that Bonk was more than meets the eye. He seemed to care about keeping the damage contained. Though he was larger than the other orcs, though he dressed far more savagely, he had a keenness for timing. His hits also never missed. He landed square at the exact same spot on Shiv's forehead every time, and Shiv felt the orc do something with the expanding shockwave, reduce it somehow, ground it within his own brutish body.

Adamantine Adaptation 168 > 170

Yeah, Shiv thought. This is pretty felling awesome. If I stick around with these orcs and let them kill me over and over, who knows how many skills I’ll have at Master and Hero-Tier?

As Shiv's body turned into dust, he watched as his bone armor snapped apart in two directions. He reached out using his Vitae and clenched the streams around the parting armor before they could fly off too far. He lost a bit of vitality, but he pulled it closer to him, and as he pressed the broken sides together, he looked on in delight as the regeneration kicked in. The two parts of the broken armor began to mend, to heal. Threads of biomass connected the gleaming adamantine tissue. 

Seconds passed as the armor began to fuse back together around Shiv’s Vitae-form, and Bonk let out a laugh.

"Not bad, eh?" Bonk said.

"Not bad," Shiv admitted. "Nasty skill. First time you hit me, I didn't think much of it at all. Second time, you cracked something inside of me. Third, I blacked out briefly. That was bad.”

Bonk let out a laugh. " I don't think I've ever hit anyone more than five times." Bonk paused as he considered his statement. "Maybe that's not entirely accurate. I don't think I've hit most people more than five times. There are a few people, however, that I never quite got to hit that much."

"Why, they run away from you?"

"No, they killed me, immediately." Bonk let out a laugh. And the orc held no malice towards his killers, for in his eyes, it was all in the way, it was all in good strife.

"Alright, you had your fun." Shiv placed a Vitae stream against Bonk and began draining the orc. "I think it's time to let the others join in."

Bonk frowned slightly. There was a bit of childishness to his pout. "Oh, but you spent hours with Helix. What's he got that I don't?"

"Well, Biomancy for one."

"Blegh, mages," Bonk said with a disgusted look. "You know, I can show you a thing or two about fighting. I can see that you have problems. Not big ones. But you telegraph a little. I can train you on the fun stuff.”

"Oh, can you now?" Shiv asked. He sounded almost offended, but he suspected that there would be something useful to learn from Bonk too. "You know what? After the other orcs take their swings at me—”

And just then he was interrupted. "Shiv! Shiv, what in the bloody hell are you letting them do to you?” A blue sun rose into existence as Adam Arrow shot past the side of the Court Levithan. The Gate Lord had a Veil Piercer drawn, but he hadn't fired it yet. He looked on, his eyes darting between Bonk and Shiv, and his expression was one of confusion, but also wariness.

"Hey Adam," Shiv said, waving a stream of Vitae at Adam. "Orcs are helping me do some training. I'm also getting to know the masters and heroes. They got my court leviathan to start working again, by the way. You want to come inside? They're doing some remodeling. It's better than it was before. They even managed to get it to eat the cave-biter earlier. Apparently it needs to sustain itself by assimilating biomass."

Adam didn't say anything for several seconds, and slowly he let out a long-suffering sigh as he dismissed his Veilpiercer. "So... they're... they're not betraying us yet?"

Bonk just laughed. "Not yet, Gate Lord. But if you're so worried..." Bonk placed his club on his shoulder, and just then Shiv responded. The moment he did, he opened his regenerating bone armor and wrapped a mana hydra around Bonk's body. A clash of crimson exploded out from the front side of the orc before he could do anything with Adam. Bonk took a step back and snorted.

"Yeah, Bonk?" Shiv said, a slight hint of genuine vicousness entering his voice. "You touch him, we're gonna have an actual problem."

That was almost the wrong thing to say to Bonk. "Oh, will we now?"

"If I go for him, if you go for him, I'm not fighting you," Shiv replied. "I'm just gonna stop time and leave. I don't care what you do next. I'm either going to keep ignoring you, or, if you really force my hand, I'll try to cripple you."

"You think you can cripple me?" Bonk asked, tauntingly.

Shiv shrugged. "Maybe, but I can tell you this much. I don't think you're a Chronomancer. I don't think you can catch up to me if I wanted to leave. Or if I just wanted to break your special orc memory skill. Whatever the fuck that is.”

Once more, Bonk pouted. "You're a real bastard, you know that, Insul?"

"Oh no, Adam," Shiv said sarcastically. "They're stealing your lines."

The Gate Lord offered Shiv a rude gesture. The orc did the same.

“Solidarity,” Bonk said, holding out a massive fist for Adam to bump.

The Gate Lord frowned, but did so ever so slowly.

The orc grinned.

Shiv rolled his arm and tightened his armor around himself. The healing pushed a few pieces out of place. That was going to be a bit annoying to deal with. With the basilisk biomass integrated, it wasn’t entirely bone either, so he couldn’t just reassemble his armor like before. He needed to move bits of flesh and bone out of the way. Sculpt it with one of his mana hydras. “So, how are things going on the other side? You got something for us?"

"Yes," Adam said. "A briefing. Also, Can Hu wants to come over."

Shiv frowned. He looked Bonk up and down. "Yeah, maybe that's not a good idea."

"That's what I said," Adam said. "But, he's insisting. Anyway, that's for later. Right now, I need to do a briefing."

"Right," Shiv said. "Briefing first. Well, Bonk, I guess you got lucky. You got to smack me around for a few minutes. Everyone else is going to have to wait."

"Oh, that's fine," Bonk said. He didn't look so playful anymore. Instead, there was an expression of genuine curiosity on his face. "I want to hear what we're up against. You're fun, and so, don't get me wrong. But, I'm here for more than just you. I heard that Vicar Sullain is one of your targets."

"He is," Adam breathed. He studied the orc. "Why? What is he to you?"

"What is he to me?" The orc laughed. "Nemesis-Beloved. He thinks he's going to get away from me, but he's wrong. This time, I have a good feeling this time."

Shiv was surprised, but then he put a few things together. "Hey, Bonk, was he one of the few people you couldn't manage a fifth swing on?"

"Indeed," Bonk said, sounding more enthusiastic than displeased. "But soon," he knocked on his cancerous club against his forehead, "Challenger willing, soon, he's going to taste that fifth swing. And we're going to figure out just how durable a Legendary Pathbearer really is. Regardless, we should have this little meeting down on the bridge. Also, it'll be useful to connect the Gate Lord to the Court Leviathan. That way, whatever he's saying can be broadcast to everyone present."

"The Court Leviathan can do that?" Shiv asked.

Bonk grinned. "Oh, the Court Leviathan can do a great many things. But I’ll let Helix show you.”

***

“And that sums up my report!" Adam's voice made the world tremble. It echoed out from a set of massive lips growing underneath the Court Leviathan. The lips were then connected to a huge pair of lungs and air billowed out just below it. Air that washed over the basilisks. The large serpents seemed to enjoy the breeze, and slowly they shook their immense bodies as they fed on a steady supply of corpses and lapped at massive pails of water.

"So. With this. You should know the general situation that faces us, our adversaries, their overall composition, and more. Now, I will continue the briefing with your most senior members aboard the leviathan, but I look forward to standing beside you as we drive back the rogue Necrotech scourge and liberate Blackedge from this unjust siege.”

From across the gate, there came a response as Adam finished.

"Thanks, Adam Arrow." 

"Good to meet you, Adam Arrow." 

"Sleep with one eye open, Adam Arrow." 

Practically all three million orcs taunted Adam at once. More than a few of them did it imitating his voice. And they were pretty good at it as well.

Adam squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his jaw.

"I told you that shit was going to happen," Shiv leaned over, whispering to Adam. "I told you, but you didn't listen."

A set of dangling organs hung in front of Adam. There was a sort of speaker organ he yelled into for his voice to be carried out from the court leviathan. Presently, he stood at the very center of the bridge. The orcs were massed nearby were True Heroes and High Masters. They regarded him with something between curiosity and barely restrained malice. 

Yet no one acted on their impulse, for the Insul declared his scorn and special retribution against any orc that dared transgress against the person of Gate Lord Adam Arrow. Even so, the atmosphere was tense and Adam's instincts called for him to flee or loose a shot. He had never spent so long surrounded by what were most assuredly monsters, enemies. Yet they did nothing and he did nothing. Instead, he treated them like a normal army, giving them a briefing about what was to come.

"Alright," Adam said. "So, those are the critical details. Does anyone have any questions?"

Almost immediately, every last orc in the room held up a fist.

Shiv narrowed his eyes at them. "Do any of you have actual questions pertaining to our tasks, or are you just going to ask Adam something to try and scare the shit out of him?"

Approximately 90% of the orcs lowered their arms, and some of them scowled at Shiv. “Spoilsport.”

Psychology 28 > 29

The Deathless just shook his head. "These felling orcs, man," Shiv said, looking at Adam. "You can't let them smell your anxiety. You're making it worse."

"How am I supposed to stop them from smelling my anxiety?" Adam said through clenched teeth. "Have you seen...? Oh, what am I saying? You're practically one of them."

Shiv rolled his eyes. The orcs chuckled.

Whisper tipped his hand high. Adam shook his head but pointed at Whisper. "Yes, you. Terrifying dimensional stealth orc."

"Ah, you remembered my capabilities," Whisper offered Adam a mouthful of pointed teeth.

"Please don't be," Adam muttered. It really wasn't a compliment.

"From what I understand, you said that you provoked this Inquisitor Sijik into action."

"Correct," Adam said. "I sent him a taunting letter and I insinuated we still had the Animancy Core. He's likely dispatching additional forces toward Gate Theborn. And I suspect there is even a good chance he himself might be arriving as well. If we can capture him, he will offer us valuable intelligence and a bargaining card against the rogue forces of the Republic.”

"Quite good. Quite good." Whisper fell silent for a moment as he digested that information. “Give me a moment. I wish to think on this. You asked for recommendations earlier.”

“Yes. You have some?”

“An idea,” Whisper said.

Helix, meanwhile, narrowed his eyes at Adam. He smacked his lips finally, and he let out a breath. "Ah. Your mother is Rose Van Erren. That explains your hair.”

Adam’s heart skipped a beat as he looked at the orc Biomancer. "How did you—"

"Tell her that Helix sends his regards. Also, tell her that she will not be so fortunate next time."

"You—" But before Adam could lose control of his temper, Shiv seized him by the shoulder and silenced him with a shake of the head.

"Don't feed their cruelty," Shiv's telepathy hammered against Adam. The young Gate Lord's expression quivered between the verge of fury and resigned disgust for the orcs. All around him were smiles, gleeful expressions that relished in the power they held over him. "They enjoyed domination, and that means all forms of domination, Adam. You give them anything, they will take everything from you. They know I care about you, so they're going to squeeze you as hard as they can. But they know if they go for you, I'm going to hurt them in ways they won't recover from, or I'm just going to pretend that they're not here. You, though, they're going to feed off your misery however they can. Don't give them anything."

"It's a waste of effort, Insul," Helix replied. He pulled his spectacles off and began wiping them using his silk coat. "He can't resist. He's not like you. He doesn't know what we are. He refuses to see it." Slowly, Helix cracked a grin. "I know this because I've never met Rose Van Erren, and Love Thief has. Me personally, no. You're very easily provoked, Gate Lord." Adam blinked as his face contorted into a rage. "Yes, yes, that is the expression I'd like to see. But it will only remain amusing for so long.”

Several other orcs laughed. Shiv just let out a long sigh. "See what I mean? Don't feed the assholes."

"How do you put up with them?" Adam said through clenched teeth.

"I mean, I let them kill me and teach me stuff, so usually there's not that much of a problem for me.”

"Shiv, sometimes the things you say, I can only imagine in my deepest fever dreams."

“And that is why he is Insul and you are not,” Helix said. “We understand why you came over, Gate Lord. But understand this yourself: We do not follow you. You gave us this briefing, but we are the Insul’s to guide into the fray. You are but an interesting victim to be right now. An interesting victim protected by the Insul. And unfortunately, he cares too much for you. And you reek too much of nervousness. You wish to gain our measure? To see if you can lead us?”

“We are not to be led by the likes of you,” Bonk laughed. “It won’t work. The details were nice, though. Your oration is pretty good. Good Rhetoric Skill.”

Adam just glared at the orcs.

Shiv sneered as well. “And this is them trying to drive a wedge between us or something because I’m the Insul, while you’re the guy actually trying to organize this war.”

“Ah,” Adam said wearily. “I suspected, but—”

“It’s usually the most psychotic thing you suspect with these guys,” Shiv sighed. “When they’re not being terrifying charming, that is.”

"I have a suggestion, Gate Lord," Whisper finally said. The orcs turned to regard Whisper. More than a few let out grunts of annoyance and distaste.

"Great," Helix sneered. "Now the child speaks. Barely that many reincarnations and he seeks to make himself a presence.”

Whisper ignored the snide comment from the orc Biomancer and continued. "I do not believe we need so great a concentration of force to resolve the Inquisitor's expeditionary assets. You've told me about them. Even with additional forces, they are probably moving apart from the bulk of their army, moving fast from how you described."

"Yes," Adam said slowly.

“Then, I would like to volunteer. A small group should suffice here to capture essential personnel. That should consist of you, I, a few more Stealth Heroes and Psychomancers. The rest of the force can be devastated with ease, thereafter. And without much sacrifice on our part, either. We have the Masters and Heroes. They can be crushed easily.”

“Crushed or turned against the Necrotechs,” Bookworm mused. “We should take some of these Inquisitors alive. And use them as sacrificial soldiers. You said the Vicar already suspects them. Then let us exploit that. We have the Psychomancers for this act of deception. It will be a most interesting false flag to engineer.”

At once, the orcs broke into discussions of their own about how to most optimally approach this without taking any losses whatsoever, and Adam’s mouth opened slightly.

Shiv leaned closer to him. “I think the trick with them is letting them improvise a bit. They don’t have discipline or inexperience issues. I think the only thing is keeping some of them from fighting each other. Because orcs got this cliche warefare thing going on.”

“Uh-huh,” Adam breathed. “Shiv.”

“Yeah?”

“Can we trust them?”

“Fuck no. But we can use them. Just like they’re definitely going to use us. They’re already using me to make themselves system-favored and level faster anyway.”

Adam did a double-take. “What? I—” He grimaced. “I should have seen that coming.”

“Maybe. But still, we can use that too. How many orc Heroes do you think it takes to kill Sullain?”

“A lot?” Adam said. “Maybe we have enough.”

“Yeah. But it’s more than that. They managed to get my Biomancy past Heroic over the past day and half. They might be using me to level. But I’m using them as well. We just need to make sure they’re being set loose on the right people. And kept away from everyone else.”

“Like Blackedge.”

“Like Blackedge.” Shiv nodded.

Adam looked at the orcs and swallowed. “Well. Beggars cannot be choosers. Let us see how these orcs arrange themselves.”

“Don’t worry, Gate Lord,” Bonk said, leaning down to place a large hand on Adam’s back. “We’ll do just fine. We’ll make sure your Inquisitor friend is taken alive. But everyone else… I hope you’re not so attached to their fates. Because you can’t save them from us. You can’t save them from anything we do.”

Adam shuddered.

Shiv glared. “Bonk. Stop leveling your Intimidation on Adam.”

“But his fear is funny?”

“Yeah. I know. And he’s mine to scare. Not yours. Find your own asshole.”

Adam scowled at Shiv. “Thanks. Bastard.”

“Bastard is right,” Bonk said, nodding with Adam. “Solidarity.”

“And don’t use him to level your Charm Skill either,” Shiv chided.