III-30 Offer (II)

Strife had always been here. Before I was, Strife waited for me, the ultimate discipline, awaiting its ultimate disciple. You look upon me l

Strife had always been here. Before I was, Strife waited for me, the ultimate discipline, awaiting its ultimate disciple.

You look upon me like I'm some unfathomable entity, some icon of cruelty, an avatar of brutality and bloodshed. That is an incorrect assumption. It is also an act of cognitive self-defense on your part, because you do not wish to conceptualize a world in which you are anything like me, because I have hurt you so, so deeply.

I will not deny this. I will not proclaim my glory in cruelty, or to relish over the wounds I have delivered upon you. These are not the things that give me satisfaction. Perhaps it gives some of my children satisfaction, but they are young in time, they will fully understand that there are waters sweeter than the tears of their adversaries. But that is something that must be acquired through strife, through experience.

And before I was a god, I was merely a creation. Oh yes, oh yes. Do not look at me, so, Ranger, close your jaw. Come now. Do you think I would have just emerged in the void? Do you think I would have reached such cruel and brutal perfection as a natural entity? No, I would have been more like you. I would have been imperfect and raw in so many ways because evolution is not a sculptor, but a blind man with a knife making cuts to a species just so it can stumble down the path of its continuation.

There was no stumbling with me from the very first day I was created. My creators wanted one thing of me, to hurt, to bleed, to inflict trauma, and when they made me, they gave all to ensure I was the perfect instrument toward strife in body and mind and soul, but they performed too well. They were too good at sculpting, and when they breathed their hateful breath into my body, I grew aware, I learned, and then I went beyond them. I gripped godhood for myself and not them

They were so heartbroken when I killed them, when I took their children, and therefore bearers from them, but how could they be so, how could they be so blind? Turn to me, Ranger, and look upon me. I didn't kill them because it was the cruel thing to do, though that hurt a part, and it had a part in making me relish in my dominance in indulging in strife. 

No, I did it because there was something to be learned there, a lesson for both my creators and myself, because they thought cruelty and bloodshed to be their ally, and I to be their perfect weapon, their perfect slave, but they are wrong.

Cruelty, bloodshed, these are just things. Strife is just a thing. It happens because we are, and that is the way it is. That way, and not some other way.

Now offer your hand to me, I have such sights to show you.

-The Challenger to Hero-Ranger Morgan Munny

III-30
Offer (II)

For Shiv, the transition was instantaneous. One moment he was in the gate, the next he was laying somewhere underground, packed tight with a mass of corpses. Maggots and festering flesh assailed him, and he found himself staring the face of a dead elf. Her face was crushed and mangled on the right, but more intact on the left. Her pale, green left eye stared on through him, her mouth hanging open in horror.

For a beat, Shiv just stared. Then the stench hit him, dear gods, the stench. It was like pure, distilled death. It crawled up his nostrils, and it nearly made him empty his stomach right then and there. With a flex of his gravitic field, a blast of force detonated off of his body. The head that stared at him disintegrated, as did all the other corpses that were lined over his person. A pocket opened around him. A pocket that misted with blood and decay. Spraying viscera and rotting patches of flesh rained down from above.

As he gathered his bearings, his heart spiked. Shiv spun on his heels, prepared for any adversary, any kind of fight. But as he did, he took in more of his surroundings, and his face contorted in a look of disgust.

"Yeah," Shiv muttered to himself, "of course you'd take me to a place like this."

He was in a cave. Its space was narrow and claustrophobic, but it wasn’t a cave made of stone and lined with soil on the ground. Now there were faces sticking out of the cave. Flesh stitched together and properly cured. Arms dangled down from the ceiling, and some of them still had lanterns threaded through the decaying flesh. All around him were expressions of horror frozen in that final death rictus of their lives.

"Follow the light," the Challenger's voice made the entire cavern shake, and Shiv heeded the god's words. He stared down along the path laid by the lantern, and they cast a trail that led toward a narrow crevice. The dancing radiance of candles slipped along the cleft of said crevice, and Shiv expected another area entirely to be waiting for him on the other side.

But though Shiv heard the orc's words, he didn't accept them. He had no intention of staying here or going along in this nightmarish hellpit, so he simply accelerated through a wall of bodies and kept going. As soon as he blasted through a section of the corpse-forged cave, the Challenger laughed, sounding like a grandfather beholding the antics of a small child.

Blood and ruined flesh peeled around Shiv, and he hit a brief stretch of open air before he slammed into a hard surface. A sound of bending metal sang out to him, and Shiv felt himself dent what was a surface of reinforced titanium. The alloy beneath him caved some more until he finally pulled himself to a stop, pulsing his field a few more times to stabilize himself in the air.

As he looked down at what he just hit, he realized it was the ruined chassis of an automaton. Its body was twice the size of Shiv's, even in his current venom-enhanced form, but it was long dead and had a large hole on the side of its abdomen. A single cyclopean optic stared at Shiv. The reflections from nearby lights made it glisten with momentary brightness before that faded as well.

Behind Shiv, the small mound of bodies he emerged collapsed. Even so, death stretched out far and wide in this place. The landscape was nothing but a rolling expanse of bodies, of broken chassis, of smoldering ruins, and of tarnished treasures. Shiv blinked as he tried to process just where exactly he was. The place was the very embodiment of an apocalypse. There was no life he could see for leagues around, and only the faintest shimmer of vitality layered itself upon this place, an even fainter shimmer than that which painted integrated earth.

Bodies ran from horizon to horizon, but the bodies were also particularly wounded in a different way than the ones in the cave. Parts of the bodies had been torn open, burst free from, and it was like they were incubators. Shiv realized that instinctively. He realized that because the way the rips were formed reminded him of the wounds he left in the Court Leviathan or the Jealousy.

Something burst out from the inside… Of all the bodies around me…

Immediately Shiv turned his Biomancy on himself. He checked his organs. He made sure there was nothing in there with him, and only then did he relax slightly. Shiv wouldn't put it beyond the Challenger to implant a parasite in his body and call that good entertainment as it hatched.

"Good paranoia," the Challenger laughed. "I will have to think of that for next time. A novel challenge for a competent Biomancer. But a competent Biomancer you are not, dear bruiser. Not quite yet.”

"Never call me yours again," Shiv spat. "It's only funny when Uva does it, it's creepy when you say it."

"Oh," the Challenger said, voice high with provocation. "And what will you do if I do proclaim ownership over you, if I do keep referring to you as mine?"

"I suppose I can blow out my ears and then tell you to go fuck yourself."

"You would self-harm for me?"

"No, asshole. I’d self-harm for me. I just don't want to hear your flapping lips. And knock off the weird possessive shit. I know you’re listening in to my conversations and watching me live. Get your own joke."

A very human-like snort came from the Challenger, but he hummed. “I suppose that is an acceptable request. Very well. To business, then.”

just then there came a flash of thunder thereafter. The sky rumbled and through clouds of pitch blackness, stained red with misted blood, fell a deluge of shapes. The shapes were humanoid, were automata, were broken ruins, were shattered weapons. But to Shiv's astonishment, some of the bodies were still moving, still glowing with vitality. And as they fell from the sky, plunging fast, they splashed into the massive rolling mounds of death and decay, as if raindrops feeding an ocean. Some of them burst upon impact, turning into bursts of spraying mist. 

But Shiv's Vitae highlighted the survivors. They still burned bright, like fires among embers. Their voices sang out then, and Shiv heard the madness in their throats, the growls of bloodthirst, the shouts of a ravenous frenzy. Some of them struck at each other with spell and blade on the way down, attacking anything that was near them.

One of the falling people landed nearby. It was the body of an automaton. It had three arms, one was broken, barely hanging on by wires, and its face was lined with blinking optics. However, the shine there was composed of narrow pinpricks that pulsed erratically. 

Shiv drew back on his gravitic field, and he slowly glided away from the writhing automaton. The damaged bot reached out for him, lashing out with its remaining limbs. But its movements were too uncontrolled. It flung itself over and landed on its chest. And then Shiv sensed a lifeform within the automaton’s body. A life form slamming itself against the inner machinery of the bot as it tried to escape. 

The automaton’s metal chassis dented outward, bending unnaturally and violently. And then it stopped. The automaton went still, shaking. Sparks burst out from between its joints. But as it entered its death throes, something began to slam inside of it again and again.

The dents grew larger, more severe, until finally the metal comprising the automaton tore open, and large gray fingers reached out from the inside. There came a deafening bellow, a roar of effort as finally a large creature hatched free from the automaton. 

Its gray-skinned body was unblemished, almost smooth, but its face was that of a cruel child, full of wonder and full of an urge to drink in all the torment it could inflict. Its eyes were bright yellow, and as its head rose free from the broken automaton's body, its gaze fell upon Shiv. The orc’s face twitched for a moment, as if it wasn't sure how to control its muscles, but slowly a wide smile spread. As the orc’s jowls tightened and his lips flared, Shiv could see all the pointed teeth gleaming inside the gray-brute’s mouth. The orc was smaller than the others, fresher, less marred, but it was an orc still, and it was an orc in every single way.

Another rumble came from above. More bodies fell and struck the ground. Countless flickering beacons of vitality blinked out upon impact, but some endured. Some endured until they winked out, only to be replaced by other flames emerging from within them. More orcs rose across the horizon. They ripped free from the bodies and ruins, death serving as the cocoon to their metamorphosis. And they let out bellows, cries, bestial shouts, announcing their birth from the ruined husks of people and things that were.

"Behold," the Challenger proclaimed. "Behold, the fate you defied if you had let my skill consume you entirely of mind and soul. I would have claimed you upon your final end. For you would have been mine to claim, touched of my essence and power.”

"This is what would have happened to me if I didn’t fuse Culinary Berserker?" Shiv grimaced.

“It is only proper,” the Challenger said. “To take on a skill of my design, an Orcish Skill meant to honor your willingness to battle and break while testing your fortitude of spirit. Should you fail, the process of losing your very being to me like these poor victims is but preliminary.”

“Yeah, it sounds to me you’re just spitting bullshit to justify all of this.”

“Hm. No. There is no justification required. They failed to defy me like you did. So I colonized their very existences. I do nothing greater or lesser than natural inclinations of nation-states and dimensions. To prey upon is our writ of existence, to be preyed upon is our eulogy of demise.”

“And what fancy words are you going to use to explain just shoving me in a pit filled with corpses?”

“Amusement.”

“Fuck you.”

A loud chuckle came from the Challenger, and the orc god’s breath was like a hurricane brushing across the world. The small orc near Shiv launched himself into the air, reaching for the Deathless, teeth bared to sample the large human’s flesh. But the wind unleashed by the Challenger grasped the newborn orc and wrenched him into the distance. The sudden spike in acceleration snapped the orc’s arms and legs. Yet, rather than screaming out in pain, he laughed, he laughed with the joy of feeling such painful sensation. 

In the orc’s wide green eyes, Shiv saw the beast's unparalleled pleasure in being alive; an insatiable urge to strive and slay.

As Shiv watched the orc get carried away, the Challenger continued his speech. "All who are swallowed of soul by my Orcish Skills are bound to me, and their souls are given unto me as their mortal bodies die, as an incubator of metamorphosis, an anvil for my warrior breed to be forged.”

"So your orcs are just, what, parasites?" Shiv asked.

"Parasites?" the Challenger said, sounding almost offended. “No more than you are for growing strong from your struggles. And no more than you would have been if could have accepted that Path offered to you by your father.”

“My father didn’t offer me a Path,” Shiv said, clenching his teeth. He balled his fists and he looked up into the sky. “My father was a sick, twisted felling shit who murdered—”

“Oh, listen and think, Shiv,” the Challenger interrupted, sounding frustrated for the first time. “Your reactive anger makes you stupid. I speak not of the man who sprayed his seed in your birther. I speak of the chef.”

“Georges?” Shiv blinked. The anger in him broke, replaced by discomfort. “He… He isn’t my father.”

“Isn’t he? Did he not ensure you had a place to eat? To stay? To work?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Did he not teach you many things for you to survive? Risk himself? Shape your personality by the heat of the stove and the edge of the knife.”

Shiv was silent by this point.

“So. He is your father in most regards. And you would have borne something of his if you actually accepted the Path of the Chef. A pity. I almost wish to know what you might be like if you devoted yourself entirely to cooking. But in that world, I would hold little interest in you, Deathless.”

Shiv frowned at the shrinking form of the newborn orc. “So. Your orcs hatching from these consumed Pathbearers… and they have the Pathbearer’s Paths?”

“Correct. You have little understanding of a soul’s shape, and so you have little understanding of how difficult it is to ensure one has an oriented fate, so to speak, that their existences are structured toward a specific set of experiences, to embody a very particular kind of legend. After all, it is not so easy for a Slave to be a great warrior, or a Chef to be a Master-Tier Mage.”

Shiv was getting tired of the Challenger’s constant prattling. “Right. Cool. Great. Glad you like to talk. Now, how about you tell me what this offer is so you can send me back before I see if I can tear a hole open in your realm with my Vitaemancy. I put a few holes in reality earlier. Didn’t like doing that back on Earth, but right here, right now, I don’t think I much give a shit.” Shiv let his Vitae streams swirl around his body for a moment, but the Challenger remained unimpressed.

"Your patience needs work," the Challenger said casually. "It is not a good thing to rush through your struggles. You lose the nutrition that way. Chefs are supposed to care about nutrition, no?"

"Wouldn't call any of this shit nutritional," Shiv replied.

“But it is. And this is your great limitation right now. "And I cannot entirely fault you for it, because the system seems intent on rushing you, on forcing you to be raw and undercooked." The Challenger picked his words carefully, and slowly Shiv stopped clenching his fists. Shiv knew the orc god was using some kind of Social Skill on him, but it didn’t feel overly invasive. It just made Shiv want to listen.

"But despite the system's ways, despite its constant urge to see you finished, or to spur you to greater heights of conflict, you must be your own master. You must snatch from the system, and from life, every opportunity you can to sample new experiences, to take in new knowledge. And furthermore, there is no need for threats. You are not afraid of me, because that is what you are, a vicious creature, a warrior down to the bone, a bruiser. You will swing your fist at me, even if there is no chance of victory, no hope of prevailing. And you will do so again and again, and I will batter you again and again, until, perhaps in your mind, you imagine your skills will finally outstrip my capacity, that you will grow strong enough to challenge a god."

"I will," Shiv said, there wasn't any doubt in his voice at all. Someday… Someday, he was going to have it out with the Challenger. Someday, he was going to know how to kill a god.

And maybe I can do it with my Vitae. To pull him apart at the foundations and render him nothing at all…

"Someday, perhaps," the Challenger said, "but not today. Today is a day when I make a few things clear to you, so that you understand what I can provide. But before that, I wish for you to be understanding, not of me, but of yourself. It is improper to treat everything as a struggle and a fight, after all."

The Challenger's last words were so unexpected that they gave Shiv whiplash. "Excuse me? Did you just say those words? Did I hear you right?"

"I am a god of strife and bloodshed," the Challenger proclaimed. "I am not a caricature of strife and bloodshed. I know very well what happens when one is utterly consumed, when one is dominated by the concepts that they interface with so much. You can see them now," and Shiv did see them now.

He saw the maddened Pathbearers writhing on the ground, their limbs clawing out, their skills blasting chunks out of the land—chunks made of corpses and other fallen Pathbearers.

"That, that fate that which they experience is what it means to be a caricature, to be so utterly swallowed by what you do, by what you experience, that you cease to be who you are. That is not dominance. That is not mantling yourself above strife. And there is a reason why you are here, and there is a reason why I rule, and there is a reason why the orcs thrive and flourish in any dimension, in all dimensions. 

Because we are the ones that seek to rule over strife, that seek excellence in conflict and the most exotic flavors in our cruelty. But bloodshed and battle cannot lead us like dogs on the leash. Not the finest of us. Not if we wish to truly be the ultimate practitioners. That requires thought, Shiv. Think. The mind and the body must be of an alloy.”

And immediately Shiv thought back to the adamantine armored orc. “There are some orcs that might need this speech from you.”

"Indeed," the Challenger repeated, "not the finest of us. It is an addiction that assails many of my kind. I must compliment you there. You saw, you exploited, and you finished the fight. The same could not be said for him, and now he will have to live with the shame of being so casually bested, of thinking himself an equal to you when he failed to even master his own mind."

"So what's the point of this speech?" Shiv said. There was less heat in his voice. "Some kind of pep talk about self-discipline or self-awareness?"

"It is not a pep talk, it is not a speech, it is not any of those things. It is simply a statement that we should always be more. To be more so that we can best grasp our desires and reach the highest peaks of legend. Sometimes the finest thing you can do for your own cultivation of violence is to simply be peaceful, to observe, and to exist among your adversary. Monotony is good for the mind; it is balancing."

Shiv simply grunted. Despite his reluctance, he contemplated the Challenger’s words and suspected there was more than a little merit to them.

Philosophy 6 > 7

“Tell me about your offer. I'm here. I'm willing to listen, but I'm not going to make any promises.”

"As it should be," the Challenger declared. "Nothing is promised in this world. Nothing unless you can take it or you can force it. In all integration, bloodshed and change remain the only constants. Bloodshed, change, and us. You have done a wise thing, accepting this dialogue. You will find few warriors as fine as an orc, but also few harder to manage. If you cannot command an orc's fascination and rule them through your tyranny, your strength, then they will indulge in their own desires. And you must also avoid their daggers in the dark, their teeth when the night falls. I do not promise a tamed army, nor do I promise obedient dogs. I give you killers, killers to the bone, and they will turn on you the moment they can, if you allow them to."

Shiv couldn't help but laugh at that. "If this is your pitch, it's a pretty shit one."

"It is an honest one, and it is not a pitch. You can refuse me," the Challenger said. "I will bear no offense if you do, for there is none to bear. In better circumstances, and for most people, they would choose a human army, an automata army, an elven army, an army of beings that are alike to you in cognition and behavior. Or perhaps even a fae army despite their whims and unpredictability. The only ones people fear and worry more than us are those who have touched your Psychomancer.”

"But you think I'm different," Shiv said. “That I can manage an orc army? Is that your sales pitch? It’s hard as hell, but you can do it Shiv? You’re not a pussy?”

"I don't think you're different. You are different. You are different because you stand here speaking to me, where so many of your kind would gawk and reel in horror. Look at you. Already, you don't notice the smell. Already, you've accepted that this place is one of death. And now you come, you speak to me, you ignore my rules, and you demand that I tell you what I have. 

“Gods would smite mortals for doing such a thing, but you don't care, do you? In fact, if I did smite you, you might feel some satisfaction from provoking me, and you would look forward to returning somehow, to sapping vitality from this world and ripping it asunder with your unique Magical Skill… However it works. And that makes you a perfect ruler for some of my orcs—because you can give them a reason to fear, and a thrill above all others.”

“Yeah? And what kind of thrill is that?”

“True death. As true a death as an orc can experience, anyway.”

"What are you talking about?" Shiv asked. 

"Calm down, Bruiser. Think. Think. I've been telling you to think for a reason."

Shiv wanted to spit some other acerbic remark at the Challenger, but he did think. He considered why the Challenger said what he'd just said, and he considered his Vitaemancy as well. He reached into Can Hu. He filled in the parts that were absent. He managed to change a skill from its broken state to merely being damaged.

And then he considered how his Vitae detonated when he speared it through the basilisk. Once more, Shiv summoned a swirl of Vitae upon his palm and stared at it. Within that mess of flowing red and white currents was his unique Magical Skill. A Magical Skill that allowed him unfettered access to another's soul and vitality, but also let him grasp their bodies as well. Right? Unfettered access.... If I focused on someone's soul, could I… could I rip it apart? Could I damage someone's skills? Or ruin their very existence.

Then he considered how he simply drank things out of existence. Trees. Animals. They faded in the vitae like they never existed at all. Combining that with how his outside context problem worked, Shiv realized what the Challenger was trying to say.

"I am capable of more than just killing an orc," Shiv said. "You mean I'm capable of breaking them? Breaking their souls?"

"You very well might be," the Challenger said. "But that will not stop an orc from being what they are. You may teach them fear, but fear will not stop them. Their instincts are too deep. They will seek cruelty unless they can master themselves, unless they can practice that protracted monotony of peace. And some will learn if you do deliver true deaths upon them. Some will learn to wait. To watch. To obey. Or perhaps it will all devolve into chaos, and you will fail. But before the end, whatever end, I am certain you will discover just how much harm you can cause with that new Magical Skill of yours."

"You have no problem with this," Shiv asked. "No problem with me ripping one of yours asunder? Killing them for good?”

"Why should I? If you are capable of it and they cannot stop you, then why should it be otherwise? Orcs reincarnate to retain their knowledge, to make it so that they can rise faster every time they return. But you can be a unique experience. A novel warlord to fight under. Not of our kind, but close enough. And the only one that can inflict a lasting, grave consequence. Oh, the thrill. Oh, the reward. Oh, the uniqueness of experience. And the fact that you are system favored above favored… I can see orcs joining you just for the pleasure of tasting that favor as well.”

And for the first time, the clouds parted as an immense shape loomed. The challenger was just as Shiv remembered him to be. Colossal of form, with scars that hid mass graves along their river-like lengths, and eyes that were brilliant and bewitching to look upon. The colossal orc sent down his declaration then, his tone changing from that of a lecturing mentor to one of an imperious god. "Heed me now, Pathbearer Shiv. I give unto you this offering, a means to build an army like no other. But in return, I want access. I want a gateway."

"Gateway," Shiv asked. "What gateway?"

"The one currently connected to Vulketh. The one that you previously thought was going to be joined to weave. I wish for it to be bound to this realm. This broken little world that thought it could contain us. This place will serve as motivation or understanding. For if you fail to control my orcs, this is what will remain of this place. Another dumping ground. A bloodshed and ruin. Soon to be fed into my Tutorial."

"And what the hell is that?" Shiv asked.

"That is my personal dimension. A place at the beginning of all things. A restart. A place for orcs to learn new skills, new understandings. Share these understandings with the brethren, or kill the brethren, to take from them their pride, their lives, and to leave them constrained within the tutorial. It is an academy. A slaughterhouse. It is a nightmarish paradise. And it will be the place from which I deliver upon you, my orcs. And furthermore, you will not simply receive an army so easily."

"I'm already going to have to shepherd all your little monsters. What do you mean ‘not so easily’?”

The Challenger chuckled. "My orcs are spread out across many worlds, a small contingent of which are preparing to invade Lone Star once more for the coming summer. But this summer, perhaps things will be a little different. This summer I have given a recommendation to a certain warlord of mine, and he has his eyes on you as well. This summer, perhaps instead of trying to break those battle-hardened artillerists, snipers, trench gunners, or shoot down their bombers, the Lone Star Orchestra can be diverted to the defense or the counter-offensive of Blackedge. But you need to convince them. You need to gain their appreciation. And to do that, all you need to do is one thing."

"What's that?" Shiv asked.

"Kill. Break. Bleed. Dominate. Dominate your enemies. Drive them back. Kill their champions. For every adept you slaughter, I think you may gain the appreciation of an adept-tier orc. For every master you rip apart, a master-tier orc may wish to test their blade against you as well, but before that, they will offer it in service. And should you kill another hero, or better yet, finally bring down a legend, you will gain a corresponding amount of orcs at such Tiers as well."

"So, kill to recruit," Shiv said. He considered the offer, and it was simple. Simple, but also poisonous. Poisonous, but also potent. Vicar Sullain had an orc serving in his forces. Shiv had killed that orc, but it took a little bit of cunning and quite a bit of force. If he could get more than a few orcs like that, then maybe, just maybe, he could make a fight of this.

As with everything, though, there were costs, and there were risks. Shiv thought of everything the orcs could provide, and his own capabilities. He was definitely going to need Uva's help—everyone's help, to keep these orcs under control. But most importantly, he needed to keep their eyes on him. He needed to be the one they wanted to test their mettle against, not anyone else. And he needed to make it clear that if the orcs harmed anyone else, he would kill them for good. He would find a way to break their very souls rather than just slaying them normally.

It might be able to work, Shiv thought to himself. Maybe that can just be the incentive. They get to try again like 811 did, like the newest adamantine orc did, instead of dying for good. Shiv couldn't believe it. He was actually considering this seriously, considering accepting the challenger's offer. But not yet.

"I'll tell you what," Shiv said, holding his head high. "I'll get back to you on this. I've got a few other people to consult with, and a few things to figure out."

"Of course," the Challenger said, "it would be remiss of me to give you that speech on patience, and then try to force you into an early and hasty agreement. Furthermore, if you are so desperate, I fear my orcs will not be so interested in you, and my warlord would look upon you as spineless, no fun."

"Well, I'm glad to please," Shiv scoffed. "So, we're basically done here, huh? Your offer is that we need to connect our gateway to your tutorial so that you can funnel in what should be attacking Lone Star this summer, and that for every Adept or Initiate or Master or Hero or Legend I kill, an orc of the equivalent tier will join in."

"That is the expectation you can hold, and that is the ritual I will propose between us when you return to me with the confirmation of your desires."

New Ritual: Bloodrites of the Vaketh-Insul - Slay enemies of an appropriate quantity and tier to gain an equivalent in orc recruits from the Lone Star Orchestra

“Vaketh-Insul?” Shiv asked.

“Nemesis-Commander.”

Shiv gritted his teeth and nodded. "Fine, I got it. Now, send me back."

"Oh, but not yet," the Challenger said. "Before you return, a gesture of goodwill and a sampling of the true dish."

"What are you talking about?" Shiv asked.

"I'm talking about you getting used to leading a few orcs. This might help convince or persuade you against accepting my offer, but it will be amusing to watch all the same. They will return with you once I send you back to your gate, so be sure not to kill them, or do. Do. And they will fight back, but they will not hold it against you, and neither will I. After all, what are guarantees? What are promises?"

Shiv's eyes widened. "Wait, how many—”

And Shiv blinked out of existence once more, as the Challenger laughed. “Do remember to have fun, bruiser. Kill them. Don’t kill them. Just remember to enjoy yourself.”