The Orcs Show Off

My eyes crack awake with that normal, adrenaline-tinged start that I’d trained myself for with years of scenarios. I hear something. It’s dark, the sun hasn’t come up. It’s morning, but very early.

Footsteps. Heavy, plodding, quick footsteps. I grab my sidearm and creep over to the front door, gingerly sliding it open and peering out into the darkness. Lots of footsteps. I see motion over my property’s concrete walls that border the street. Grunting, plodding, jogging, heads bobbing up and down, traversing my view from right to left, down the sidewalk, just barely visible over the wall.

There’s lots of them. At least 30. They’re jogging. What are they? I flip my flashlight on and catch a green, bald-headed blur as it bounces in and out of view, just peeking over the threshold of the wall. They’ve got to be some heavy steppers.

“UNGH!”, I hear.

“UNGH, UNGH!”, again.

This quick-moving procession of giants must be orcs. My orcs? It can’t be. It must be. They continue on down the road, but the final runner catches my eye. Not an orc. It’s brown, furry, dog-shaped. Bear shaped. That’s no orc. What the hell was that?

Once they’ve cleared out down the road, I decide there’s no getting back to sleep, time to make some coffee. Wait, there’s no coffee. I scan the kitchen area. Sitting in a neat pile on my kitchen counter is a stack of labeled, wrapped rectangular objects. A note is beside them. “Good luck! - Arianne.” I lift up one of these bricks to my nose. Coffee. Sweet, sweet coffee. I don’t know how she knew, but I thank the Lord above for my good fortune. She must have had them teleported here. I’d already bought filters and some small mugs in preparation for a city-wide search to seek out this morning pick-me-up out. She beat me to the punch. I quickly scrunched up the note and shoved it in my pocket.

Once the aroma filled the air, I heard stirring from down the hall. Out comes Leia, tousled hair, half-asleep. She plops down at the table and sticks her hand out. She gets the first coffee. We enjoy a dark, early morning together in silence.

The sun came up. Just as we’re making our way near the station, I spy a pair of wooden columns soaring well above the 2-story building complex I’d become familiar with. It’s a rope climb, but it’s got to be 50 feet tall, at least. I can’t take my eyes off of it as we enter the courtyard and get our first glimpse at the Dwarves’ idea of how they’ll test the Orcs.

In the cool morning sunlight, walking around the side of the building, I finally see it. It’s an obstacle course, all right. An obstacle course from hell.

First, a massive, round stone dragging weight, with a comically large rope drawn through the middle. It looks like a giant coin, the size of a car. A clearly marked U-shaped path marks where it’s supposed to go.

Then, a series of successive stone walls, neatly mortared and doubling in thickness and height, up to about 30 feet, closely stacked together. I could see getting over them with a crane, maybe.

Beyond that, a quagmire of a mud trench, topped with barbed wire, strewn with broken logs and planks buried in the muck that stretches in another U-turn to the next portion. A set of wooden walls, like those of a farmhouse, with a red target painted in the middle, flanked by some kind of strange totem poles that glow blue. The last one is 10 feet thick, reinforced, like a castle wall.

Then, the rope climb, soaring up into the air with a bell at the top. Immediately after, a set of waist-high barriers to hop over, followed by a short oval track with a finish line.

I can’t imagine the sadist that designed this madhouse.

“Is it to your satisfaction, sir?”, asks a familiar Dwarven voice just behind me. It’s Maahnn.

I can scarcely find the words for it. It’s like what I thought my first Academy course was like at 19 years old, scared out of my mind.

“Yes… Very good.”

One by one, I spot the Orcs neatly arriving, jogging into a line besides Biru, who stands at attention near the start of the course. That brown, furry creature I saw this morning appears out of the fog, standing on two giant hind legs.

It’s a bear.

I’d seen lizards, but there’s bears here, too? My first thought is not “How?”, but rather, “How is he going to stack up against these orcs?”. There’s clearly high expectations here.

The dwarven officiators arrive also, setting up their mechanical time-table and preparing their notes. With a subtle glance, they announce they’re ready.

One of the subordinate dwarves steps to the start line and beckons our first candidate forward. As I scan among them, I realize there’s a terrifying uniformity to these orcs. Despite some of them being darker, greener, browner, older, younger, they all carry the exact same physique, almost as if age doesn’t affect their physical ability. A few look more wrinkly than others, perhaps with more money and armor, but they’d still put bodybuilders to shame where I come from.

BLAM, the start signal fires off. Immediately, this orc takes up the stone rope in his hand and effortlessly drags the 800 lb anchor behind him around the U-shaped path, plonking it down in the end zone. He glances at the walls, then hauls himself up over them in one single motion, essentially jumping over them with a grunt. The last wall is 30 feet tall. He just squats down with a roar, launches himself up into the air, easily cresting the top before gracefully landing back down in front of it, kicking up a cloud of dust.

He dives into the muddy trench, disappearing from view. I can see the various bits of debris getting swallowed up in a torrent of swirling mud. Moments later, he erupts from the other end of the trench, sprinting forward. He squats down in front of the wall targets.

One punch, and the red, painted wall explodes into splinters. One punch for the next one. And the next one. And the next one. Finally, the 10-foot-thick, reinforced castle wall. I see him assume a very deep, stretched stance.

With a tremendous grunt, an “UUUNNNHH”, he struck this ridiculously beefy target. It exploded into smithereens, bits of wood raining all around, with a clear hole punched through the middle. This Orc climbed through the hole and met the rope climb.

Trying to collect my jaw from the floor, I watch as this specimen hauled himself way up into the air, rang the bell, and then jumped down from about 40 feet up, blasting a crater in the sand on impact. He jumps up and starts running, vaulting the barriers effortlessly, tackling the oval track and setting the initial time for the group. There’s no fanfare, all the other Orcs are judging him intensely, and I’m left with the taste of blood in my mouth. Those wooden target walls rebuilt themselves, between the totems, as the next challenger stepped up.

In my excitement, I bit my cheek. I couldn’t believe what I’d just watched. I figured they’d be strong, but this is something else.

What I saw next made even less sense. I figured they’d have an easy time with a physical course, but the data blew my mind. One after the other, no matter their age, appearance, or equipment, they all landed within about a second of eachother on the course. Even the dwarves were confused. They glared at their timekeeper, who pleaded with them to trust him. As each Orc finished the course, they all gathered around Biru and sat down on the grass, awaiting our verdict, chatting away in their simplistic mannerisms.

Maahnn pulls me aside.

“Sir, they all passed. Every single one of them. It was our goal to fail at least half of them based on poor performance, but the margin of error is too small. What should we do?” He asks, with every bit of that Dwarven social myopia.

“Pass them, dummy. Did you watch the same thing I did? All of them passed with flying colors.”, I seethed back with a stern reprimand.

The one outlier was the bear. Despite easily tackling most of the heavy lifting and climbing, he couldn’t deliver the sheer impact power needed to crack the castle wall target. This gave him the dubious honor of the lowest passing score, however, he gained the most praise from the Orcs, who hugged him and patted him on the back.

I sat back in my chair and watched these big boys celebrate their victory over this comical, ridiculous obstacle course. I have a little surprise in store for them. I’d partnered with a local butcher to prepare the meatiest, most hearty lunch spread, specifically tailored to orcs, just for this occasion. With a loud clap to catch their attention, I thanked them for their time and told them to follow me.

When they saw the meeting hall, filled with food and drink, the cheer they let out just about deafened me. My ears are still ringing hours later, but it was definitely worth it. Definitely.