Volume 2 Chapter 2 Bastion of Orcs

Chapter 2 Bastion of Orcs

I

“Who are you? Why are you here?” demanded one of the orcs. He was tall and muscular. Due to some unknown reasons, being about 3 meters’ tall, his size was far bigger than other orcs.

“Wow, you can speak Normanish, that’s great, uh,” muttered Starsha.

“I am the smartest one and also the strongest of the orcs. I am their alpha. Who are you? Why are you here?” demanded that strong orc.

“We’re only travellers happening to pass by,” stuttered Floria.

“I don’t care whether you’re innocent or not. Anyhow, I will punish you, sentencing you to death,” smirked the Alpha Orc.

“Umm, that’s not a good idea,” commented Floria.

“You seem not afraid at all. Aren’t you? We orcs sentence criminals to death by letting them fight with our leader so that the leader can kill the sinners on his or her own. In our case, I am the leader,” explained the Alpha Orc.

“Well, we will fight you. What will happen to us if we beat you?” queried Floria.

“It’s impossible to beat me. I am invincible. Blood of necrovirus is flowing inside my veins!” roared the Alpha Orc.

“Necrovirus? You must be kidding me! How did you get the necrovirus?” probed Floria.

“I bought those viruses from Master Mortis. I have lots of gold and Master Mortis needs gold. I gave him gold, he gave me necrovirus! Anyway. If you can really beat me, we orcs will spare your pathetic lives, but that won’t happen. I have never lost since I was born,” bragged the Alpha Orc.

“Before we begin to fight, can I ask you one question?” questioned Floria.

“Just ask, human!” commanded the Alpha Orc.

“Why do you hate us humans so much?” pursued Floria.

“Because the civilization of you humans are breaking the balance of the world. The world isn’t a peace place anymore, there are wars, lies and hatreds everywhere in this ulcered world. All of those things are brought by you humans” hissed the Alpha Orc.

II

The four were sitting inside a cage in a small room. This cage was made of simple iron and thus if they wanted to escape, they could easily break out of it. However, they had had a deal with the Alpha Orc. If they could beat him, the orcs would leave them alone.

There were a few skeletons inside the cage sitting with them. Hanging on their bones were disgusting grey carrion and some of their bones had been dyed red by their own blood.

Those skeletons belonged to someone unknown. Maybe they belonged to some unlucky travellers who ran into this lair of evil orcs.

Anyway, fighting all the orcs were far more difficult than fighting one alpha orc.

“So our plan failed. There was no information that has to do with the location Sanctum of Life here at all. What a tragic story!” complained Floria.

“Don’t be said, Floria. Our adventures aren’t meaningless. I really enjoy travelling with you three,” Aislina reassured her.

“After defeating that Orc Alpha, I will take a big sleep,” sighed Starsha in tiredness.

“So will I. Maybe after we escape this vault, we can take a real trip like going to the beach. I have never seen what the sea looks like,” proposed Yanni.

“Yeah, that’s hilarious. We’re almost the most experienced travellers and we have explored all elder vaults. We’ve also seen real wonders like the Infernal Mountain and the lava lake, but we haven’t seen the sea yet!” Floria pointed out.

“The sea? That must be a beautiful place,” whispered Aislina.

“Yeah, for sure. There are lots of bards that have written songs about the sea. In the ancient times, oceans were the symbol of the distance and the mysteries. After all, no one knew what roamed in the other side of the ocean,” murmured Starsha.

“To be honest, I think we shall start to worry about our fight with the Orc Alpha. Normal orcs are horrible, let alone an orc enhanced by the necrovirus. Last year, Starsha and I were nearly killed by Sir Bellum,” warned Yanni.

“But we have Aislina today, so don’t worry, Yanni,” Starsha smiled confidently.

As soon as her voice broke off, a small orc walked towards their cages, opened it with a key and gestured them to walk through a door of this room.

Leaving the room, the four found themselves standing inside the great Colosseum of Orcs. The whole colosseum was built inside the cave and illuminated by torches on the wall. Since they just went out of those dark rooms of orcs, those torches were extremely rough on their eyes.

Opposite to them was an iron gate. After some drastic drumbeats, the iron gate opened and out of the gate walked the Alpha Orc wearing horrible black plate armour with a hood. He looked like some sort of Robinhood-like ranger in folklores, but a dark, evil version.

There was a dreadful axe held in his right hand which was made of steel. Other orcs sitting in the audience were roaring and cheering in blurry languages. Clearly, they were confirmed that their leader would smash those weak humans into pieces.

The four were nervous in fact. They had witnessed how strong Sir Bellum was and he was only a normal human injected with the necrovirus. The Alpha Orc was different. He was an orc and orcs were far stronger than humans. For orcs, humans were as weak as those small negligible insects.

The fight began.

With a flash of green light, Aislina summoned a flower containing destructive spores, which once broke the mace of Sir Bellum. She aimed at the Alpha Orc and shot an enormous cloud of spores.

However, to her surprise, the Alpha Orc was intelligent and agile. Knowing how powerful Aislina’s spore was, instead of trying to parry the spores, he dodged it dexterously and charged towards Aislina, wielding his fearsome axe.

Aislina was panicking. She had underestimated the Alpha Orc. Now she would soon be smashed into smithereens by that horrible orc. Luckily, she had teammates. Yanni rushed in front of her and held up his shield.

The axe of the Alpha Orc soon collided the shield of Yanni. Though Yanni’s lunarite shield had been broken by Master Mortis, Aislina helped him to forge a new one after came back home from that epic adventure. After all, there was plenty of lunarite in the Dream Forest.

Although Yanni’s weapon might be harder and more durable than the Alpha Orc’s his physiology was far weaker than that orc. Therefore, the Alpha Orc seized Yanni’s shield by hand and took it off him after realizing that it was impossible to break his shield.

Opening his mouth widely ferociously, the Alpha Orc began to roar dreadfully at Yanni, his teeth as sharp as those beasts’. At this very moment, Floria unbent her finger and shot an supersonic arrow towards the head of the Alpha Orc.

The arrow blasted the hood of the Alpha Orc into pieces and the shockwave shook his head and made him dizzy. Howling with pure wrath, the Alpha Orc turned back, staring fiercely at Floria.

Without doubt, Floria had irritated the Alpha Orc successfully and the latter commenced to charge ragefully towards her.

Floria was an archer and she was bad at melee battle. She had redirected the attention of the Alpha Orc from her brother to herself, but she had no idea what she could do to survive from his ruthless attack now.

Noticing that Floria was in danger, Aislina summoned a strip of vine and wounded it round the ankle of the Alpha Orc. She wanted to use the vines to trip him, but she was too weak in physical strength. Her face reddened because of exhaustion and dragged by the ankle of the Alpha Orc, she was about to fell over.

Seeing that, Yanni stepped forwards to grab the vine together with Aislina. With Yanni’s force, the Alpha Orc fell to the ground dragged by the magical vine.

After the Alpha Orc was knocked to the ground. Starsha ran towards him and cut off his right hand. Blood began to burst out of his wrist like some sort of scarlet fountain. The Alpha Orc held the axe with his right hand. Therefore, getting rid of his right hand meant disarming him as well.

Floria reloaded her bow and shot another supersonic arrow towards the head of the Alpha Orc. She didn’t miss and the head of the Alpha Orc was shocked into debris of flesh.

The Alpha Orc had died, and the four had won. The whole audience became silent. They had been roaring and cheering, wating for their boss’ victory. However, their respectable and murderous leader had died. Even though they couldn’t believe what they had seen, it had truly happened. It was not their dreams, but the reality.

In a hurry, the four stormed out of the Colosseum and left this elder vault as fast as they could, after all, this was not a good place to dawdle. When they were escaping, those orcs were staring at them but none of them dared to attack them to revenge their alpha.

III

The four went inside the elder vault and remained inside it fighting the orcs for several hours. When they left the vault safe and sound, it was already deep night.

After walked towards home for another two hours, they sat down, built a campfire and decided to spend the night around it. The Bastion of Orcs was not very far from Starshine village, so it was a quick trip and they could arrive there the next day.

The cunning moon was hanging high on the night sky, and its white lights were pouring down like dripping milk. Everything was soaked in absolute tranquillity and perhaps because of the weather, there were no insects humming.

There were cool winds blowing, dispelling the hotness during the daytime. The four even began to feel a little cold because of the sudden cooling down.

Shaking slightly, the campfire was flickering …

It was nearly midnight but none had fallen asleep. They looked at each other, their eyes blinking. Since it was difficult to fall asleep, they’d rather chat than lying awake in vain.

“So none of you have fallen asleep, right?” inquired Floria.

“What are you thinking about? My mother told me that insomnia was caused by worries haunting the mind,” murmured Starsha.

After a long silence, Aislina spoke.

“I am thinking … are there anything in this world which can make humans live longer, as long as elves? I wish you could live as long as me so that you won’t leave me one day,” breathed Aislina.

“Many kings and emperors have tried to find that kind of thing. They are assisted by the most excellent occultists in the world. Some of them even have mystic power like you … But none of those kings and emperors succeeded. All of them have failed. When a human becomes old, he will die and be buried in their tombs. That’s the law of nature, Aislina,” narrated Starsha …

“Fate is cruel ….” whispered Aislina

“As my mother once said, time will help you forget everything, Aislina. You will live for centuries and our friendship will be only a small part of your life, but in the Sanctum of Life, you can find the ones who will accompany you throughout your whole life …” drawled Starsha.

“Starsha is right, Aislina,” agreed Yanni.

“So one day we will say goodbye to each other inevitably,” breathed Aislina.

“We will find the Sanctum of Life, and the sanctum will be your abode,” Starsha reassured her.

…

There were some raindrops falling down from the sky but it just rained slightly for about ten minutes. When the rain stopped, there was a nearly unperceivable moonbow born far in the distance …

IV

The next day, the four arrived at Starshine Village at dusk. The village was still covered by some kind of lifeless atmosphere and the villagers were still roaming like zombies as if they were only empty vessels without souls.

In the past, they always grabbed some trashy books in their hands but now, things had become different. Besides trashy books, there were also a small metallic devices in their arm.

There was some music along with lyrics coming out of that device. Even in the distance, Starsha could sense that the music was beautiful, or to be precise, perfect.

The music generated by those devices held by the villagers were impeccable. Starsha had never seen such kind of things. However, she was too tired to ask those zombie-like villagers where those musical devices came from. The only thing she wanted to at the moment was eating a glorious dinner.

They knocked on the door of Mister Berg’s house and the door was opened by him.

“Welcome back, adventurers! Have you find anything about the Sanctum of Life?” greeted Mister Berg.

“Yeah. But only some fragmental information … The exact location of the Sanctum of Life is still a mystery and there are not even one single clue about it,” sighed Floria.

“That’s strange. Everyone knows the Sanctum of Life, but no one knows where it is. That’s weird,” Mister Berg pointed out.

“Anyhow, we’re tired now and we want to eat the dinner. I’m sorry that we always eat free dinners in your house …” apologized Floria.

“Ha-ha-ha! You don’t need to think like that. After you defeat the Grey Factory, some young guys have come back from the cities because the cities are functioning worse than before. Therefore, our village is making more and more money these days,” Mister Berg reassured her.

“Are we still wanted now?” queried Floria.

“Yep, young criminals. But in fact, no one knows where you live. After all, you’re barbarians living in a tribe, and the camps of those barbarous tribes are never noted in the maps. Anyhow, you don’t need to worry about being put into the prison. No one has the power to defeat you four,” answered Mister Berg.

“That’s true. Well, let us help you cook the dinner, Mister Berg. We’re at your service,” proposed Aislina.

“Thanks, my heroes,” expressed Mister Berg.

“Well, may I ask what are those devices held by the villagers are? You know, I mean those devices that can play music,” asked Starsha.

“Oh, those stuff are called music boxes. They’re produced by a factory called Macchina Gloriosa located in Desertia. There are rumours that those music was not written by humans,” replied Mister Berg.

“Not by humans? So are they written by aliens or other monsters?” pursued Starsha.

“No, they’re music produced by pure machines,” responded Mister Berg.