[Be Gone] Ch 48 – Observations of an Orc Master

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            “I confess to being exposed to tales of great battles and fighting and mighty spells, not merely rolling across a landscape and Burning it to ash,” Master Kosh the orc Tattooed Monk admitted.

            “For all that you contemplate the world about you, the skills you develop are largely meant for personal combat, brother Kosh. Thus, the world is a place of conflict to you, while this is a very new form of conflict you are not used to seeing at work.

            “In fact, this is the battle that Jigoku and your world have been fighting all along, but you’ve been focused on the oni, who are mere symptoms of the fighting, not the true fight itself.”

            “Merely symptoms of a disease infecting the world,” he murmured, staring at the holocaust around us, a literal sea of fire expanding as we moved slowly and remorselessly on, and the forest Burned to white ash behind and around us.

            “It is similar to, let us say, needing to Purify a site to rid it of an evil infestation. Battling the manifestation of the Evil does not solve the problem at all, the Ritual to Purify it is what is important.” I waved my hand around at everything. “Purification. All of the fighting is simply a mask to burn our road into the Shadowlands, and force it back. Killing oni, killing a sea of Tainted trees; it is all the same, the Duty of Fire.”

            He contemplated all that, staring at the devastation ongoing all around us, wind and fire combining in a hellstorm of fury. “The Tigers and you seem to have a... somewhat different view of war than many people of the Empire,” the brawny orc offered carefully.

            “It is because we don’t see it as a noble game. War is something meant to be started ferociously, and ended quickly. We take that word, ‘war’, very, very seriously. It is not a game to us. It is a test of survival, and so when it comes time to make war, that is what we do. A spirited contest between noble clans, no. If it involves death, it is no longer a mere contest. If you have to go to war to resolve your differences, those differences had best be worth death. If they are not, and you are still going to war... then, then it is time to educate you on what war truly is, and can be.

            “If the cost is too high, then perhaps you will find another alternative than spending lives for politics.”

            “The warriors and the politicians of the Jade Empire would not like such changes,” the orcish monk observed after a moment of thought.

            “That had not escaped my attention, nor that of the Tigers,” I agreed blandly.

            “The senior Tigers seem neither surprised nor overly impressed at what you are doing here,” Master Kosh commented after considering that for a minute.

            “This is war. This is what a person of my capabilities is expected to be doing.”

            “Are all humans like this?” the orc had to wonder.

            “No. Humans run the gamut of personalities and societies. There are realms very similar to the Empire, orders like your own, hordes running about like the hyen and huul to the north, kingdoms enamored with conquest, others devoted to peace, and yet more engaged in all-out pursuit of coin or magic or knowledge or exploration.

            “The world and realm we hail from is a bit special in some ways, but that’s just a matter of viewpoint. In the end, it is about power, and how you use it.”

            “You wield power with will and great familiarity, brother Aelryinth, but... you do not impose that power on others. It is a rare thing to see.”

            “It is because of the nature of the society you live in, once again. Power flows up the hierarchy of the Jade Empire, and so naturally flows back down. The gaining of power is furthered by the imposing of power.

            “My power is my own. I can walk away from mortals, demons, gods, the Land, and all that they have to offer, and my power would still be my own.

            “I cannot, however, walk away from myself, and doing the things I know must be done. You might say I have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility about some things.”

            “Ah!” The orc grinned widely, his tusks gleaming. “You do this from a sense of responsibility.” He shook his head slowly. “The rulers of your homeworld must be quite special to have such an independent power about.”

            I laughed gently. “Not at all. I’m actually one of the Powers That Be at home. Korbald and his people would qualify as my Vassals. I’ve like ten million souls and more to look after there.”

            “Ten million...?” repeated the orc, astounded at the number. “And you are not an emperor?!” he gasped.

            “No. The land I live upon was once home to over three hundred million humans. The planet held over seven billion of us. It is all gone now... there are about thirty-some million of us left. I am one of the largest of the Monarchs who remain, yes. But compared to what came before us, eh! We could have dropped the population of the Jade Empire into one of our larger cities. The Emperor Himself would barely qualify as a regional governor, and would never have been appointed or elected, given how he acts. Those Clans who war among themselves at the drop of a hat would likely have been exterminated as deadly vermin.”

            The rather thunderstruck orc sat there for long minutes, pondering those words. “Those... would be dangerous things to say inside the Jade Empire, brother Aelryinth...”

            “I am not inside the Jade Empire. One of the reasons the Tigers get on so poorly with so many of the Clans is that they believe in being held responsible for your actions, you can’t just gaff it off as ‘for the good of the Clan’, or ‘I am the Empire.’ Entering the Jade Court might just make me empty the Jade Court, so in the interests of not creating a diplomatic incident, I’m not going there.”

            “A diplomatic incident,” the orc repeated slowly. “Yes, that might be... a rather significant event, emptying the Jade Court...”

            “You think? And so, I am not going there.”

            The orc laughed softly and deeply. “Indeed!”

---

            More time passed as we watched the inferno building and swirling, spirals of fire building into columns of rage towards the heavens and spinning away to vent that ire upon the Tainted greenery that could not flee it.

            Master Kosh finally broke the companionable silence again, almost with a sigh. “Brother Aelryinth, I have a question.”

            “Go on, brother Kosh,” I replied calmly.

            “I have seen how the senior Tigers react to me and my kin. I have heard whispered tales from the Horse on the northern wastes, and there are apocryphal tales nevertheless passed down among my own people.” I nodded understanding of where this was going. “Have you... met with orcs elsewhere?”

            In reply, I lifted the Baneskull off Mortus Dius, and the compartment the Itemized ones were stored inside within my Staff opened. Another one came spinning out, growing to full size, and emphatically came down to take its place.

            Master Kosh stared at the great Skull, the gleaming ivory of its tusks, and the menacingly brutal, primitive air of rage and savagery that seemed to hang around it.

            Also, the Banefire burning the exact hue of his own yellow blood, blazing there with anathema for all that orcs were.

            “On many, many worlds, if not most worlds, the orcs have a major problem, and that is that they follow the wrong Divine Patrons. Powers that are claiming to be their racial gods, and perhaps even were the ones who created them; entities gathered out of their own savage desires from a warlike past and history; Evil gods who seek to make use of them. Whatever they are specifically, they seize the orcish race, and they twist it down very dark paths, indeed.

            “My homeworld regularly suffers incursions from other planes, representing gods that are attempting to extend their dominion to our worlds, claim the abandoned lands we don’t have the numbers to resettle, and grow their power.

            “Orcs are one of the major races sent to seize those lands and propagate that behavior.

            “They are cruel, savage marauders with little mercy and a great love of battle and slaughter. They don’t have quite the same appetite for being slaughtered, and they don’t really have a knack for magic as a whole, being more of the berserker barbarian mold, if anything.

            “This is the Dreadskull of an Orcish Avatar, a Warlord endowed with inhuman strength, speed, and power, and furthermore emanating a massive Aura which bolsters all the orcs about it, driving them to rage and frenzied, fanatical savagery, while also shutting down all spellcasting within the same area.

            “These Avatars are actually endowed by a Patron that has nothing to do with the orcs whatsoever, and is simply using them to establish a foothold upon our world... a foothold we are energetically turning back, in blood and magic, time and again.

            “But there are many battles we have to fight, and the Yellow Tide of orcs has not stopped.”

            I leaned the Dreadskull towards him. “My Staff is mnecromonic. It stores within it the memory of every single creature I have ever killed.” He gasped in shock, staring at me, then looking out at the devastation around us. “Yes. Every single demonic tree Burning here is recorded in my Staff. I am not standing here watching them die, brother Kosh. I am feeling them die.

            “And it is Good that they do.”

            I took a long breath of my own as he stared at me. “I gain no power from this. I am no vampire or leech. There is no magic that comes my way, no energies to be gained, or knowledge to be siphoned.

            “It is a record of those that have died at my hands, letting me know that I have killed what has needed to die, and letting any others know the same, if they but lay hands upon my Staff.”

            I dipped the head of Mortus Dius lower, encouraging him. “Place your hand upon the Skull, brother Kosh, and feel those orcs I have sent on.”

            He stared at me for a long, quiet moment, measuring the risk, the truth in my words, and realized that he was going to feel something he did not want to.

            Nevertheless, he reached out his large callused hand and laid it upon the yellowing bone girt in the flames the color of his own blood.

            He gasped despite himself, and his hand tightened on the Baneskull. His reddened eyes opened wide, and he saw the vestiges of souls recorded, their final emotions, and very specifically, their Auras.

            Black, and purple. A rare few gray and uncaring, and even a rarer few brown, caught up in deadly events and falling with their kin.

            There were thousands of them. Tens of thousands of them. I had killed a lot of orcs back home, because there were lots and lots of orcs TO kill. While they were best used as tempering Karma for Juniors, when a hundred thousand of them were turning the landscape black, us Seniors didn’t hold back.

            There was no way to hide the bloodlust, the feral hunger and murderous impulses. Sadism and masochism wound through the culture, berserker madness was always at the edge of a mindless fury that wound through them, encouraged by the society they’d been molded into and built to encourage not just a warrior’s mindset, but a savage, ferocious one.

            Master Kosh finally jerked his hand away from the skull, his yellow skin sallow and paler. I calmly pulled the Dreadskull of the Avatar off, shrank it back down, and slapped the Tainted Baneskull of a Greater Oni back on Mortus Dius, saying nothing.

            “That is the most horrifying thing I have ever experienced, brother Aelryinth,” the orcish monk whispered, his voice very low and quiet for such a brawny male. He flexed the hand that had grasped the skull, staring at it with hollow eyes that yet had a knowing, dangerous light in them now, a temptation that was not there before.

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